By: Ben Joos
March 29, 2010 11:57 AM

So, it finally showed up today in our mailbox. Published in Berlin, June of 1928, Die Neue Typographie by Jan Tschichold is commanding my undivided attention. Clean. Smart. Functional. Legible. Logical. Totally deprived of personality and ornament. 

Grids of course can help us all become better designers and thinkers alike. It keeps us defined, keeps us aligned and offers us plenty of unique layouts. When staring at a blank white computer screen, a grid can be a huge sigh of relief. For a lot of us it helps us begin to design or fine tune a work already in progress. When done right, a grid looks like these four examples from the masters like Herbert Bayer, El Lissitzky,Joseph Muller-Brockmann and Jan Tschichold. 

Sometimes however, a grid can be come extremely boring and start to look very much the same time after time. Sometimes their is a need for a more organic, less structured design approach.

Either way, it is time now to begin the first chapter of Die Neue Typographie.