wiedler.ch

book (design) story #352

marshall lee, george nelson, herbert bayer:
books for our time

oxford university press, new york, 1951
printer: robert teller sons & dorner, bound by h. wolff, new york
size: 29 x 22 cm
designer: marshall lee

according to its preface this book was conceived at the occasion of an exhibition of modern book design in the usa. not surprisingly, the book itself is designed in a modernist style (of a typically american flavour), by marshall lee (*1921) who also contributed a text and whose book design work is shown with numerous examples.

the negative spine title on black reminds of jan tschichold's famous "neue typographie" (see story 29) which is featured in the book, while the pointing hand sign was often used in dada typography.

the end papers explain old and modern design principles using images of chairs and buildings.

marhall lee was a professor for book design at new york university, and later a ufo researcher. there are also texts by other noted designers such as herbert bayer, merle armitage, ernst reichl, and george nelson.

interesting comments by marshall lee on pages 13/14: "it might seem illogical that there should be only 14 books of european design in this exhibition of 152 books. nevertheless, the committee feels that this number is in fair proportion to europe's part in the modern movement. with the notable exception of the bauhaus activity in germany during the 'twenties and some good work in switzerland, book design has been left out of the main current of artistic development in europe. even the bauhaus movement has taken firmer root in the united states than on its own continent. (certainly the dictatorships of hitler and mussolini must take a large part of the blame for this.) the iron grip of tradition and its staunch defenders have effectively kept the designer away from british books. (...) in france, the emphasis has been on illustration and craftmanship in limited editions rather than on the design of mass-produced books. eastern europe suffers from the same sort of political strangulation of its creative activity that germany and italy experienced earlier. the net result is that the center of creative force in this movement is america."

among the few european designs apart from tschichold's "neue typographie" (below) ...

... are two designs by richard paul lohse: "anthologie der abseitigen" (see my story 2), and "wie wohnen?" (see story 371), although the latter is falsely attributed to max bill.