This is the fourth of a series of articles
based on the Type Directors Club talks
held in New York in the Spring of 1953.
T U R A
This installment was designed and written
by Alexander Nesbitt.
The opportunity to discuss the history, form,
and use of Futura is a project dear to my heart.
I have long feit that Paul Renner, the designer
of the face, was far too little known to students
and professional typographers in the United
States. To my mind he has been very much
underrated. Other German graphic artists,
Rudolf Koch for example, have commanded
our entire interest, to the point of being slightly
overrated.
Renner was born in 1878. He attended the
art schools of Berlin, Karlsruhe and Munich;
and started his career as a painterthe State
ment in one American book that he was an
architect is erroneous. His First important job
was as a book designer for the Georg Müller
Publishing Company, a well-known Munich firm.
Paul Renner has always been active in
typographical education. He has written ex-
tensively for graphic arts journals and is the
author of four books which come to grips with
many of the aesthetic and practical problems
that concern the printer. These are not to be
had in English translations; and they are there-
fore little known in this country. Renner's credo
as a teacher may be expressed in the following
translation of one of his remarks: As difficult
as it may be, there is little eise we can do ex-
cept to train or teach each inaividual who is
in any way connected with letters or typog-
raphy to become an independent and self-
sufficient judge of quality.'Frorn 1926 to 1933
he was the director and moving spirit of the
Munich School for Master Book Printers; al-
though this school did not really function until
1927. The National Socialist regime removed
him because he spoke and wrote sharply
against the turn of events. It is impossible, if we
are to cover our subject adequately, to record
any further biographical details. The reader
may be assured, however, that the reasons
Futura became under its various guisesthe
most used advertising display letter lie largely
in the character of its creator.
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