wiedler.ch

book (design) story #86

eugen gomringer:
33 konstellationen

tschudy-verlag, st. gallen, 1960
size: 18 x 18 cm
designer: max bill

eugen gomringer (*1925) is a pioneer of visual or "concrete" poetry – a literary movement closely related to mid-20th century "concrete art". gomringer was a co-editor of the "spirale" magazine (see story 85) and max bill's secretary when bill was director of the hfg ulm.

this book is the 11th in the series of quadrat-bücher (square books) published by swiss writer hans rudolf hilty (1925-1994) for the tschudy-verlag, st.gallen. note the square book format and the small black square on the white cover.

the design of this book is by max bill (1908-1994) who also contributed 6 drawings called "konstellationen" (constellations), like gomringer's poems.

the poems and geometric line drawings (in red) form a perfect unity – both are precisely constructed visual combinations of standardised language/graphic elements.

as the impressum states, the typeface is "neue haas-grotesk". in the year this book was published, the name of this famous swiss sans-serif – designed by max miedinger (1910-1980) – changed to "helvetica".

the flush left, ragged right setting of lowercase text in a single size and weight is typical for max bill's typographical style.