wiedler.ch

book (design) story #68

adam scharrer:
aus der art geschlagen

verlag der bücherkreis g.m.b.h., berlin, 1930
printer: auerdruck, hamburg
size: 19 x 13 cm
designer: jan tschichold

we already came across some of jan tschichold's (1902–1974) great book designs for the bücherkreis, a socialist book club – see book stories 6, 11, 40, 41 and the next few.

adam scharrer (1889–1948) is a working-class writer. the hero of his story is a country boy who tries to escape the fate of his family – by joining the socialist movement. in 1933 scharrer emigrated to czekoslovakia, later to the ussr.

jan tschichold's cover features an asymmetric composition of red rectangles and sans-serif type on a fine grey cloth. the title is repeated on the back cover – the line box and the semicolon after the author's name are typical for tschichold's work of that time.

the title page takes on the style of the cover. the bücherkreis logo has not been reworked yet (see story 70).

the page layout is symmetrical to the spine – quite different from tschichold's early "elemental typography". only the bold (however small) page numbers and the dots (between sub-sections) remind of that phase.