“Everyday Printed Matter: Kurt Schwitters’s Experimental Typography”, 2019 ():
[cf. 2014] This chapter examines a range of everyday printed matter designed by Kurt Schwitters that used the Systemschrift and other related scripts. It addresses questions of temporality and rationalization in relation to typography and highlights how Schwitters leveraged his commercial commissions to fulfill the avant-garde aim of bringing art into everyday life.
The early years of the twentieth century had brought with them an increased interest in both the typography and layout of all types of publications, from text-based books to invitation cards and advertising posters. The esthetic shifts that were taking place in typography also had an impact beyond the letterforms, seeping into the design of the printed page itself.
Schwitters might be best known for his montages, love/hate relationship with the Dadaists, and the one-man, transdisciplinary art movement he founded, Merz, yet the artist worked across many disciplines, including sculpture, painting, poetry, prose, opera, typography, and graphic design.
…Schwitters, however, was not content to just design experimental new typefaces—although he also did that—instead, he focused on the creation of an entirely new way of writing. What Schwitters envisaged was a rationalized script that would be compatible with twentieth-century life, and in particular, the speed of the modern city. By first examining Schwitters’s Systemschrift [systematic script] and contextualizing it within broader typographical changes at the time, this chapter examines a range of everyday printed matter designed by Schwitters that used the Systemschrift and other related scripts.
In doing so, it addresses questions of temporality and rationalization in relation to typography and highlights how Schwitters leveraged his commercial commissions to fulfill the avant-garde aim of bringing art into everyday life.