Jan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold (1902-1974) was a book designer, teacher and writer and most importantly, in our case, a typographer. During the first stages of his life he believed and embraced Modernism and even created a book Die neue Typographie. Although, later on in his life he reverted back to more Classism and even went so far as to condemn Modernism and his book for being too authoritarian and inherently fascistic.
During the years 1947-1949 Tschichold lived in England, which is where he oversaw the redesign of 500 paperbacks published by Penguin Books. By doing so he left them with a standardized set of typographic rules, the Penguin Composition Rules. Even though he gave the books a more unified look and enforced a lot of the typographic practices the are mostly taken for granted today, he also allowed for the character of each work to take charge of its own look, with varying covers and title pages.
His pieces, even though done a while ago, are designs that are very visually engaging and impactful. His use of grid and color create a design that is very much a part of today's own design. His design inspires my own to take a step out of the box and use more complex grid systems.
Check out a biography here: retinart.net
