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book (design) story #36

jean mussard:
arbeit und geld

büchergilde gutenberg , zürich, 1943
printer: genossenschaftsdruckerei zürich
size: 22 x 13 cm
designer: richard paul lohse

five years after "geld" (see books story 35), an extended version of jean mussard's (1888-1967) book was published by the büchergilde gutenberg zürich. again, richard paul lohse (1902-1988) designed the book. the two editions have a different look, although lohse used the same bold-wide sans-serif type for both.

the dustjacket features a great photomontage: the background shows a stock certificate in the colour of the "greenback" dollar. across this symbol of "geld" (money), workers pulling a rope are printed in red. red is not only the complementary colour to green, but also the colour of "arbeit" (work) and of socialism, of course. also the title and author's name are red, signalling the rather leftish content of the book.

the cover repeats the writing of the jacket, but in a silver, coin-like colour on brown cloth. on the spine, the title is inverted – is this silver rectangle an hommage to jan tschichold's book "die neue typographie" that had a very similar spine design (see book 29)?

on the title page the same writing, again in a silvery grey, with the subtitle "roman der währungen" (novel of currencies) added in a roman italic. the asymmetric title layout and mix of contrasting type are in a style tschichold propagated in the early 1930s.

the photographic chapter titles recycle the images of the earlier edition. but now the titles are in bodoni antiqua, like the body text.