Bill 5, Tschichold 6
Ash Smith / 2025.02.24
The exchanges in 1946 between Max Bill and Jan Tschichold never go away. They combined typography, aesthetics, morality, politics, at a level of seriousness that is rare in any such debate between designers. (In a one sentence summary: Bill accused Tschichold of now practising a reactionary typography, with dangerous political echoes; Tschichold considered Bill’s typography to be artistic in a bad sense, and with a false elevation of machine production.) Recently, revising a text that I had written in the 1990s about the conditions for design in Europe after 1945, I had to check its publishing details again.
Typography papers is being made available again
Ash Smith / 2022.12.15
We are glad to announce that articles from the Typography papers series are being made available as free-to-download pdf files on the University of Reading’s Typography & Graphic Communication website.
Typography papers 9
Ash Smith / 2022.08.22
This latest issue of the series of Typography papers opens with a beautifully illustrated article by the type designer Gerard Unger on ‘Romanesque’ letters. A further installment of Eric Kindel’s pathbreaking history of stencil letters is published in contributions by him, Fred Smeijers, and James Mosley. Maurice Göldner writes the first history of an early twentieth-century German typefounder, Brüder Butter. William Berkson and Peter Enneson recover the notion of ‘readability’ through a history of the collaboration between Matthew Luckiesh and the Linotype Company. Paul Luna discusses the role of pictures in dictionaries. Titus Nemeth describes a new form of Arabic type for metal composition. The whole gathering shows the remarkable variety and vitality of typography now.
Typography papers 7
Ash Smith /
This occasional, book-length work is edited and produced at the Department of Typography, University of Reading, and is now published by Hyphen Press. It publishes extended articles on its subject, exploring topics to the length to which they want to go. Its scope is broad and international, its treatment – serious and lively.
Edward Wright: readings, writings
Ash Smith /
Born to South American parents, British citizen, cosmopolitan at heart, Edward Wright – painter and object-maker, typographer, writer, teacher – was an enigmatic presence in London’s post-War art and design scene. Wright has been described thus: ‘His subjects: human communication, the mundane, the street. His manner: sparing, self-critical, yet the work had vigorous attack and full conviction. His typical method: assemblage, with what was to hand.’
‘Typography papers 9’, and ‘Isotype’
Ash Smith / 2013.12.10
Copies of our two new titles arrived in the office recently, and we are releasing them for sale today. These are Typography papers 9, edited by Eric Kindel and Paul Luna, and Isotype: design and contexts, 1925–1971, edited by Christopher Burke, Eric Kindel, and Sue Walker.
Isotype: a new book
Ash Smith / 2011.08.01
We are working on a book, with the title Isotype, which will provide an extensive and detailed history of the work in graphic communication produced under the direction of Otto Neurath. This is a collection of freshly written and fully illustrated essays, supplemented by documents published for the first time in English translation or in transcription.
Paul Stiff (1949–2011)
Ash Smith / 2011.04.11
An obituary of Paul Stiff was published in ‘The Guardian’ on 7 April – see here. What follows below is an extended and re-edited version of that text
‘From hieroglyphics to Isotype’: book launch (report)
Ash Smith / 2011.01.26
A short report, with the introductory remarks by Robin Kinross and Eric Kindel, and Christopher Burke’s more substantial exposition of the making of our edition, can now be found on the ‘Isotype revisited’ website.
‘Typography papers’: a list of contents
Ash Smith / 2011.01.09
We get quite frequent enquiries about Typography papers: which issues are still available? how best to try to get hold of out-of-print numbers? contents of the back numbers? And, from subscription agencies: please send us the issue for 2010!
‘From hieroglyphics to Isotype’: book launch
Ash Smith / 2011.01.06
On Thursday 20 January, thanks to the kind hospitality of the Austrian Cultural Forum in London, we are launching From hieroglyphics to Isotype.
Isotype exhibition in London
Ash Smith / 2010.10.18
In December an exhibition presenting the history of Isotype opens at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Isotype revisited
Ash Smith / 2009.09.22
The ‘Isotype revisited’ research project at the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading, has now launched its website.
Wright in Reading (further)
Ash Smith / 2007.03.09
The Optimod website has further material on the Edward Wright show.
The Stafford papers
Ash Smith / 2007.02.22
The ‘Optimism of modernity’ project has posted its first ‘documents’.
Wright in Reading
Ash Smith / 2007.01.20
An exhibition of Edward Wright’s design work opened yesterday at the Department of Typography in the University of Reading. For two months or so, the public has the chance to see some of the products and working materials of this special man, who in the spirit of the heroic modernists of the earlier twentieth century, did not pay much attention to boundaries between art and design. Yet – he was working in mid-century Britain, and in situations that were often pretty torpid.
Kinneir, Reading, ‘Typography papers’
Ash Smith / 2005.05.13
Designers, places, publications are woven together and put in historical perspective in this short text by Paul Stiff.
Publishing ‘Typography papers’
Ash Smith / 2004.09.21
We are very pleased to announce that Hyphen Press is taking over publication of Typography papers: the distinguished, occasional, book-length work from the Department of Typography, University of Reading.
An interview with Robin Kinross
Ash Smith / 2000.08.21
This interview was recorded in London on 28 May 1999, and published in Slovenian translation in the cultural magazine Emzin’.