Csaplár Ferenc szerk.: Lajos Kassák / The Advertisement and Modern Typography (1999)
The Advertisement and Modern Typography
rules and simple Doric type. Their designs are based on the laws of equilibrium, not symmetry. Their modern decorative materials are simple geometric diagrams, and these insets are meant to achieve not an artistically decorative but an effect of being spotted. One of their most beautiful such supplemental designs is the Blickfang series. One can, however, even with this basic material, despoil advertisements by dabbling in art and turn them into kitsch, as with festoons and flourishes. One would be grossly mistaken to think that the unthinking use of these geometrical figures is enough to shape an elementary typography. We now find modern typographical efforts even in Hungary, and we often observe that the Blickfang is used as a decorative element in these works. And it is understandable that certain decision-makers object to the use of this material and tell the type-setter to throw away the completed work because they think it looks more like a merger of blacks than a pure product of the printing press. This is primarily a conservative bias speaking in such managers, but there is often undeniable truth in their objections and criticisms. The incorrect use of compact geometrical forms makes for slipshod and dishevelled advertisements, which primarily offend one's aesthetic sensibilities. It is this lack of aesthetic clarity that makes those who commission advertisements uncertain about the economic and cultural significance of modern typography. But this is all part of the difficulties of a new beginning. If our designers and type-setters grasp and sense the essence of elementary typography, it will be easy to demonstrate to decision-makers, those who commission advertisements, and the buying public that the modern advertisement is not only cheap and technically easy to produce but is also one of the most effective mediators between production and the consumer markets. REKLÁMÉLET (ADVERTISING), AUGUST 1928, PP. 1-3. Advertisement, Ma 3-4 (1924) 265x185 mm 14
