Ww Interview with Wolfgang Weingart

Elizabeth S Garside Typography Donald Tarallo Copyright © 2011 by Ariella Yedgar.

The conversation took place in Basel in January 2011. It was copy-edited by Ariella Yedgar. ©

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Speakers, Louise Paradis, and Wolfgang Weigart © To Donald Tarallo, for teaching with great excellence. Special thanks to NYT for allowing Fitchburg State University graphics department to use their TM RSI SGM 1960-90 Research Archive for educational purposes only. © . gained international international gained

olfgang Weingart olfgang W

Following Weingart’s studies at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel, from from studies at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel, Weingart’s Following remain at to him Armin Hofmann allowed teacher 66, influential 1964 to type its to access him extended Emil Ruder allowed and longer, the school with play to and began independently, he worked During this period shop. of limits such as slant, weight, size, and components concepts typographic with along experiments, These spacing. letter of effects the and readability, a stir not only results, and caused to staggering led of filmsetting, his use and design scene. typography in Switzerland on the international but also Typografische for of covers series was a radical work His most renowned such momentum created 1972 and 73. The series between Monatsblätter stardom him to which propelled out on a US tour set soon that Weingart the US and worldwide. to of tours years many and led to When the new International Advanced Program for Graphic for Program Advanced International When the new in was inaugurated für Gestaltung Basel Design at the Schule Emil Ruder, its director to assistant was appointed 1968, Weingart a full-time became ailing health Weingart the latter’s to owing yet voice, own find their his students to encouraged Having teacher. in the US continued his or emigrated who returned those of many his name further and thus spread there legacy

Typographer Typographer and graphic designer

recognition in the 1970s by developing a striking visual language visual language a striking developing in the 1970s by recognition Swiss of typography at the time. conceptions that challenged Schule teacher at the influence as a his great this, and to Owing to as the known 1968, he became startingBasel für Gestaltung from style. Wave the New of father

Wolfgang Weingart Weingart Wolfgang 1 Solution 2 NewYorkTimes Interview

Weingart’s work was published regularly in Typografische - . As his contributions became more prominent in the starting in 1966 1970s he achieved great visibility and renown internationally. His work left no one indifferent as he both challenged and roused the sedate design sphere of his time.

NYT HowLP would you describe the position of TM magazine in the world of graphic hat’s the design and typography between 1965 Wuse of being legible, and 85?

when nothing inspires Was the magazine important to you? you to take notice of it? Weingart WW Why 1965 to 85?

BecauseLP I think it is an interesting in-between period. You still had very Swiss work, but something else was also happening.

WW Before 1965, you had important people doing covers for TM, like Herbert Matter for example. Then came the time of Emil Ruder and Robert Büchler—all people from Basel. It was the 40s and 50s. Emil Ruder came with very elementary typographic problems, and some of his students, for example Yves Zimmermann, would work and create upon these. But what you can see is, every time, a formalist problem. Every time the letters T and M were played with, and so on. They played with those initials and capitals every time until the 60s. There was a kind of idea of education behind it. In the beginning of

3 Wolfgang Weingart the 70s, I had the idea to make “learning covers.” What is typogra- phy? What is communication? What is text? There is no theoretical explanation for what is text … What is an alphabet? To bring up these 1972 questions was totally new.

LPYes, I think your TM cover series of 1972 to 73 was totally new; it completely stands out. You picked excerpts of texts by designers for that series. I saw that you picked one by a Canadian designer.

WW Carl Dair. That cover is not in my book, because I don’t like it. It was all hand-composed. And then it continued with students of mine, kind of teaching collages.

HowLP did the series come about? Did Rudolf Hostettler contact you? Or did you propose to him to do a series?

WW I was a member of the TM editorial commission, and every half a yea we had a meeting. What’s happening next, and so on. I had the idea to make test prints in the type shop at my school, and I presented about 10 covers to this commission. There was only one person against it. And the other people said OK. At that time, we didn’t know what consequences it would have. They were all afraid, because it was so totally different. Anti-Swiss, anti-Swiss. They were a little bit cautious, but they said, “Yes, do it.”

WhoLP was the person who opposed your idea?

WW You probably don’t know him. He is a German, Walter Zerbe. He is like a Jan Tschichold guy, very classical, a kind of a conservative typographer. He emigrated from Germany to Switzerland. Why? I don’t know, he wasn’t Jewish. He wrote a very good book about printing and composing, called Satztechnik und Gestaltung [Typesetting and Design], together with Leo Davidshofer. I have it in my library at home. He was also the main typography NewYorkTimes Interview

teacher at Bern. You never heard about typography from Bern. You heard only about Baseland Zurich, but Zurich didn’t have a lead teacher, like Ruder at Basel. They were more into graphic designers like Josef Müller-Brockmann and all those people. Important typography people didn’t exist in Zurich. There was Alfred Williman, but he was designing typefaces and doing calligraphy more. There was Ernst Keller as a graphic designer, but none were specialized in typography, like at Basel.

WhatLP about Hans-Rudolf Lutz, wasn’t he in Zurich?

WW Yes, he did an apprenticeship in Zurich, in a big printing house. He went to the Schule für Gestaltung Basel for one year, to take the special class Gestaltungsklasse für Typografie [class for typographic design] led by Ruder, between 1963 and 64.

LP That was before the International Advanced Program for Graphic Design at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel was established, right? I had heard about this special class, Gestaltungsklasse für Typografie, and that they accepted very few people, maybe two or three per year.

WW Yeah, that was from the beginning of the 50s. It was Ruder’s idea that hand-composers, lead-composers would have the chance to learn how to make typography visually. But he started with a class of not more than three people. Besides that, he taught apprentices, boys and girls, who studied in the city, and had to come to the school for one or two years. During the intervals, the breaks, he would give critiques to no more than three people, like

Hans-Rudolf Lutz, or Fritz Gottschalk, and Yves Zimmermann. They came specifically for Emil Ruder, and there was a waiting list of 2 to 3 years, because he took only two to three students at a time. But this class had nothing—nothing—to do with the International Advanced Program for Graphic Design at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel, which started in 1968. I started teaching typography then. LP Was it your idea to start that class? 4

5 Wolfgang Weingart

WW No, it wasn’t my idea, because I wasn’t in Basel. The idea came up in the beginning of the 60s, because the school got more and more international recognition, and more and more students wanted to study in Basel. They had to bring students into other classes, which in general couldn’t take more than 16. Once, in the 60s, Ruder and more specifically Hofmann had the idea to establish a special class for these special needs— international needs. It started in April 68 with around 10 students, mostly from America. Some left because they had to go to the Vietnam War. Then there was concern that we might not have enough students. The beginning was not easy. But it was 90% American, and one Canadian, Claude Forgé.

LP You also had students from other places, like India.

WW Yeah, we had students from 35 nations: New Zealand, India, Africa, Brazil, all over Europe, the States, Mexico. In India, they opened a design school with the support of the Ford Foundation, because it was chaos there; still is. The Eameses made The India Report—very interesting. It is a little printed magazine where they present research done in India over many weeks, and they came to the conclusion ofStudents starting a design school in Ahmedabad, because there were a lot of fabric industries and rich people there. So the National Institute of Design (NID) was founded, and Hofmann was chosen, the Eameses too, Otl Aicher and Adrian Frutiger, and I think Buckminster Fuller too. All these people were teaching there to build a program. It was a great idea. That is why we had Indian students at Basel.

LP Do you know if the school is still running?

W WW Yeah, yeah, I was there five years ago for an afternoon. It is still there. People don’t know who is Hofmann anymore, but I found a teacher who has been there for 40 years. Actually, 40 years ago I was at that school as a tourist and I saw Hofmann 6 NewYorkTimes Interview

then, between 1964 and 65. My parents lived in Karachi, in Pakistan, so I traveled to India with my mother, and we visited Ahmedabad. He asked me to come with him to build the school in Ahmedabad, but I had only been teaching in Basel for a year, and I had no English. I said no. They took another typography student of Ruder’s. He built the type shop department in the same way as the Basel type shop, with Swiss type, Swiss furniture.

LP It must have been pretty exciting to have people coming from everywhere. How long did the International Advanced Program for Graphic Design at Basel last?

WW Until 2000. It is now at university level.

ThereLP is apparently no archive of the students who Studentsattended Basel. Did you keep a record? WW The names? Women students, a lot of them changed their names after getting married. But I have a whole list. A student of mine started to trace them all. He sent me that list; I have to study it. I am sure there are a lot of mistakes.

DuringLP that period, the WW A graphic designer is a graphic professions of typographer and designer, and a typographer is a graphic designer were two separate typographer. entities. I mean, they were obviously linked, but still different jobs.

7 Wolfgang Weingart

LP But at some point those disciplines started to merge, right?

WW Hmm no. Ruder was a very strict typographer. He didn’t like that a typographer made graphic design. He was very stubborn. Hofmann didn’t care, but Ruder was not really happy with a typographer making graphic design. Ruder made pure typography and passed that on to his students. It had nothing to do with graphic design, that is clear. This was also the time when Univers came onto the market and opened a lot of possibilities. It was the big time of Ruder. There was Ruder-type experimentation, which for me is wallpaper typography. Repetition typography, for me, is not typography. In the beginning maybe repetition typography looked new, looked strange, but if you see it too much, it is boring.

DoLP you define yourself as a typographer or a graphic designer?

nyone WW Awho uses Helvetica Oh nothing. I am kind of an artist. You probably knows nothing about know my book. I did woodcuts and linoleum typefaces. Weingart cuts. They are very artistic.

LPDo you think you contributed to the merging of the two professions?

WW I don’t think about it. No typographer was doing the kind of work I was doing; it is closer to art. When I took the direction I did when I was 15 … I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I was inspired by artists like Kirchner and the Die Brücke … I always had an internal fight about what to do in the future. Then I became very enthusiastic about Swiss typography, as you can read in my book. I did a piece for my examination in Germany in 1963. I almost didn’t pass it.

HowLP come? WW I grew up with a very classical kind of typography. The examiners lived in this kind of world. NewYorkTimes Interview

SoLP Swiss typography at that time was not very well known?

WW Only to insiders. In Germany in general it wasn’t. In the beginning of the 60s, it was almost unknown. The Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm existed; it started in 1953 but its work was unknown and strange for Germany. Germany had had the Second World War, it got bombed, it lived in this old world.

ILP heard that when the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm closed a couple of students went to Basel.

WW Only two. Dan Friedman and Ken Komai. Ken Komai, an American who now lives here in Basel, and Dan Friedman, who died around 20 years ago. Friedman had a scholarship from an American foundation to go to Ulm. He could have this money only if he applied to Ulm, because it was a university-level school. He couldn’t apply to Basel, because we were a trade school. Ken Komai, transferred a year later, because he heard from Friedman that the school was interesting. Friedman was in the first year of the new International Program at Basel. Students often came from Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, because Kenneth Hiebert was teaching there. He was an old student of Hofmann’s. Hiebert went to Carnegie Mellon to teach graphic design, in the middle of the 60s. In 1968 he made propaganda for this totally new program at Basel. That is why we had about five students from there including Dan Friedman and others. So it was a good thing that we had those students.

TheLP system at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel was very different. You had apprenticeships. It was more of a trade school. You said earlier that it was not considered to be at university level?

WW That is true of all the schools in Switzerland until 1999.

WhatLP do you think about that school system? Do you think the apprenticeship was a good system? What was its value?8 Typographers WW in every school Not handcraft great. it was for that say I would Switzerland but nobody Zurich perhaps, Basel. was as good as all But unknown. totally were they and Lucerne, about Bern spoke and speaking, is only talking, it is nonsense, level that university is the primarya bad idea. But it I think it is It does nothing. problems. education. in your result an academic having for way So, if I go back to my question. TM was mainly for typographers. typographers. TM was mainly for question. my if I go back to So, a see can the 60s and 70s, you look at old issues from If you offset articles composing systems, new about technical of lot then typography, of a certain percentage TM featured printing. of and more more and it became printing, for such a percentage contribution and my of Especially because a design magazine. students’ work. my WW Lausanne was a totally unknown school, everybody laughed about this school. about this school. laughed everybody school, unknown Lausanne was a totally behind is no philosophy There exactly. know I don’t And what Lausanne is today philosophy is no great not only in Switzerland. There today, most schools it, like not at an are now the results me, For the Bauhaus or Basel. like anymore, in Hofmann’s The results level. very low are They level. university academic level. academic high level, class, were in the 60s and 70s in the advanced time, this kind of thing, see in Switzerland, don’t they here But the stupid government one see I don’t it is everywhere. only paperwork. see That is not only here, they is interesting. that in the world school WW

Weingart Wolfgang

with that? kind of used TM for that purpose, to promote the school. Do you agree agree you the school. Do promote to that purpose, TM for used kind of LP advertising, and they for that much money have that Basel didn’t I heard

LP sure. out, for schools that stand of couple a are that there I believe master class in Lausanne at the moment. master wonder about the university level question sometimes … I am doing a … sometimes question level university about the wonder LP applied arts. design and type I design are Graphic That is interesting.

9 TM 10 NewYorkTimes Interview WW To show good arrangement of pages. of good arrangement show To I made the pages as an the time Most of That was the idea example. educational arists people, publish different behind it. To do what we to free totally were —and we wanted.

Yeah yeah, in a way yes. More for typography, not graphic graphic not typography, for More yes. in a way yeah, Yeah much in TM. so publish didn’t Armin Hofmann design. WW Publishing wasn’t important to him. Teaching was important. to He hated important him. Teaching Publishing wasn’t to School is such a confusing the Basel why reason publish. That is one Hofmann, me. is Ruder, there people; many so are institution. There Bauhaus and Ulm down. opinions, nothing is written different are There class. my do it in TM, with I tried to all the time. results published their new WW WW and “Typographic the supplements “TM Communication” I created I published student 1972 onward, them from see can You Process.” studios, typographers, people; other by work but also work photographers. LP Jim Vines, Gregory students: your articles I saw so many by Yes, very good also a them it was Alben … And for and Lauralee Faris, opportunity a little known. and become their work show to What was the goal of the goal of What was those supplements? Yes, he actually told me that it wasn’t that important for him, that important for it wasn’t me that told he actually Yes, a typographer. not designer, a graphic because he was LP LP LP and communication” “Typographic “TM encountered When I first very refreshing. were they I thought Process” Typographers

11 Wolfgang Weingart WW It was a whole movement at the time. My idea was to change graphic design, Swiss graphic design, from this very strict way of making typography to a more lively way. And it had some effect, internationally too.

LP Yes. You made a huge contribution to typography and graphic design. I think your work made every designer look at typography differently; even people who didn’t appreciate it.

WW There were a lot of people against it at the beginning. But slowly they saw the value. Gottschalk and all those people were against it. But in the end they hired some people from Basel. Because they saw they had no other choice—they had to change something. How much? That’s another question. But they had to change something.

WW No. Some teacher in Düsseldorf said that I was the first Photoshop LP pioneer, and he was not wrong. There was a lot of What you can do now with Photoshop change in technology. very easily, I did it with film. So the You started with lead computer brought nothing new for type and then you saw me. I thought I could make different the computer invasion. things with the computer, but it was Did those changes only wishful thinking. For me, manual affect your design? use, manual results matter much more than pushing buttons. But you cannot be against computers, because they W are as necessary as food today. LP But the change from lead type to phototypesetting seems to have affected you, right? NewYorkTimes Interview

WW WW It was a whole movement at the time. My idea was to change That is another thing. Photocomposing and computer composing are graphic design, Swiss graphic design, from this very strict way of making a totally different thing. Photocomposing was over film. There were the typography to a more lively way. And it had some effect, internationally negative plates of the alphabet, then you made the text step by step, and too. if you made a mistake you had to start another film. I never worked with

photocomposing machines, but I worked with lithography film materials. I used the stet camera, repro camera. I have some examples here. I got new results through transparency. Transparency was my great chance. It is the same principle with the computer: you have the layers.

OtherLP than technical changes, I think there were changes in the way of thinking, in the ideas that were developed, during the period we’re discussing, in graphic design and typography.

WW You mean the visual changes?

TheLP visual changed but also the ideas presented. For example, there is a series made by Hans-Rudolf Lutz during that time—the series of pastiche covers he made for TM. They brought the idea of contextuality, which was totally new for Switzerland.

WW Lutz was the opposite of me. Very conceptual ideas. TM readers got confused. But this is a typical conceptual idea.

LutzLP and you are cited, in the book Swiss Graphic Design by Richard Hollis, for example, as the two main people to have broken the rules of Swiss graphic design.

WW Lutz did it in a softer way, he was more diplomatic than me. He was also a fighter, but a very charming, handsome, kind, friendly, tolerant teacher, which I wasn’t. 12

13 Wolfgang Weingart

LP What kind of teacher were you?

WW I was also friendly, but not tolerant. For his TM cover series of 1977, Lutz only Maybe if the work had quality then yes, I was took the text out and put TM instead. The idea very tolerant. You can see it in the students’ was always to do something against Swiss work in TM. We made huge contributions. If typography, because Swiss typography had you look at the work of Vines, he created a no chance to develop. If you did something huge variety of visual vocabularies in his different, then it was not Swiss typography project. He was impressed by a door of a anymore, and people were against you. If you castle, and he made an interpretation of it. took a step further, you were an outsider. Ruder This was his concept, but it was very different did something different, but it was still pure from the kind of concepts Lutz would develop. typography, lead typography.

LPDid you know Rudolf Hostettler?

WW No, I met him because he had three or four adopted children from Tibet, and they made drawings. Hostettler was interested in children’s drawings. I made a book about children’s drawings, and when I showed him my book he became interested in me. He saw that I was making outstanding typography that he liked and accepted. And that he supported. He actually supported a lot of young people. He saw that I could give new input to TM readers. So I was always very free with what I could do for TM. No limitation—I could make what I liked.

HostettlerLP was very open. He liked to have a great variety of work. That made the magazine have such great quality.

WW He was a very educated, interesting, international-thinking person who was fully identified with the magazine. He was open to every good new idea. Without him, I wouldn’t be who I am, because he was the person who published my crazy ideas without question, because he trusted me.

Basically,LP through TM you were able to show your work and to acquire international recognition. TM was the vehicle for your message. 14 NewYorkTimes Interview

WW TM had not a lot of international subscription, perhaps no more than 700 people. But the subscribers were often outstanding designers with an interest in typography, and also libraries. TM became available to students through their library’s subscription, which was a great chance for them since they had no money to subscribe themselves. Internation LP That is interesting because there is no record of TM subscribers. One thing that I’ve been really interested to discover is how international the magazine was. I know, for example, that Jack Stauffacher, in California, was an early subscriber. April Greiman mentioned that it was available at her school, the Kansas City Art Institute, in Missouri, when she was a student. So I know that TM had presence here and there in the US and also a bit in Canada. But do you know other places where it could have been seen?

WW Japan probably, but not too much, because at that time most Japanese didn’t speak English that much, and even less German. But my idea lectronic was to make my contribution in three languages. Eequipment replaces I wanted to make the magazine international. That neither Eyes, Hands, was one of the reasons TM got more international nor Heart.? Weingart recognition, because the articles were also in English.

WhatLP about Graphis, did you like that magazine?

WW No, it had nothing to do with us. It was a magazine that showed everything. The publisher, Walter Herdeg, who died many years ago, was looking for quality, but he had another standard of quality than we had. Graphis was not a representative magazine of Swiss typography. Another magazine was Neue Grafik, which featured strictly Swiss typography.

TheLP Schule für Gestaltung Basel and Yale University had a special link. I think you taught there at some point. Wolfgang Weingart 15 WW Yeah, a few days. Not like Hofmann. He taught there regularly for over 20 Basel years, four weeks a year.

InLP the 90s Yale had a new director, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville. After that, the connection between the two schools stopped.

WW Yale was very influenced by Basel. Some Basel students and teachers became teachers there. When Sheila Levrant de Bretteville became the new director, she wanted to start a new thing, which made Paul Rand and Armin Hofmann very angry, and they resigned from one day to the next. She thought because she was new, she had to bring new ideas to the program, which is OK, no problem with that, but she was not the right person to continue the connection and friendship between Yale and Basel.

LP I read somewhere that you WW are credited as the father of [Laughs] That’s their problem, New Wave, what do you think not mine. about that?

ButLP do you agree, or simply don’t care?

WW You can say that without my experimentation at the school in Basel, without my teaching and my work, David Carson or Neville Brody would not be where they are today. I broke the ice. Same goes for the Cranbrook Academy of Art. The McCoys saw TM and my work, and they changed their work from one day to the next and started to imitate me, and it became their own style, that chaos or whatever it is. But they are 100 per cent influenced by my work, and Katherine McCoy said it in an official lecture; she doesn’t hide it.

Yes,LP some works produced by students WW Issue 14, of 1990, of Émigré at the Cranbrook Academy of Art became magazine, which was entitled icons of postmodernism. What about “Heritage,” was about Swiss Émigré magazine? It was not connected to design. Rudy VanderLans and Basel. WZuzana Licko, the editors and NewYorkTimes Interview

designers of Émigré, were very early users of the computer. They knew my work probably. But the Macintosh brought a new visual language.

LP TM made a special issue about your work WW in 1976. I had seen the same work in your Yes, I made all the decisions. book previously, but I was impressed by additional features presented in that TM i I picked the paper and the ink, ssue, for example, the choice of paper and and I did the layout and the ink added a lot to your work. Was it plates. I did everything. your decision?

LPWhich of your students do you think have achieved the most, career-wise? Do you think April Greiman is one of them?

WW She is one of the few students who found her own way. Many students copied what they learned, not only from me, but from Armin Hofmann and Kurt Hauert too. A few students tried to find their own way, and she is one of them. Dan Friedman also found his own way. But many of the students just do what they learn.

ILP read in Design Quarterly that the goal of the Basel School was to stimulate students their growth and also to encourage personal expression. So, you were pushing students to experiment, but only a few did it?

WW Many did it. In the first year and a half, they had to do very basic work. Learn the basics. Then I asked them, “What interests you?” If they had ideas for their own personal project, like a diploma work. Lauralee Alben, for example, found her subject in Superman, Faris found something else, and then Vines found that door. So these were kind of research. I was not interested in a single result, but in the research. I was interested in process-oriented teaching, which Hofmann and other teachers shared too. 16 Wolfgang Weingart 17

ItLP is an interesting approach. WW I am not young anymore, and I am not that Do you still believe in it? enthusiastic anymore. In a way, I don’t care that much anymore. I care, but not like before. In the 90s, I used to work seven days a week. Now I do almost nothing.

IsLP there a reason for that?

WW Yeah, I have different problems, with my legs, I have difficulty Socialwalking. I have health problems. I am very tired: I have to take medicine every day, and it makes me very tired, without enthusiasm. That is horrible, because I was a very enthusiastic workaholic.life

LP The students I met told me that it was very interesting to have you as a teacher, because you were not only the teacher but they also saw you working on your personal projects. I also heard you were very friendly, inviting peo- ple over for meals or for drinks.

WW Yeah, yeah, we had a very healthy social life. Beside hard work, we had a lot of fun. Bicycling to Germany, drinking, eating, and then the next day we were working hard. But work was work and pleasure was pleasure, I made that very clear. School for me is a serious place where you undertake research. Very interesting research. It is not only a room to have fun in. I think the school today is not interesting academically. We have 26 letters in the alphabet, how can we reduce them to 12, or how can you read this text faster, those are interesting research questions. Not to make nice

funny work. It is not enough for me. Ulm was doing something interesting, but not in a visual way. The visual question was not that important at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm. If you see the work of Otl Aicher, it is not particularly interesting. It is good, clean, but any individuality was forbidden. If you had a little painting from your grandmother in your room, they hated it. You had to have the same pen and same tie as your professor.

18 NewYorkTimes Interview 1964 WW and Ruder, for came sad and mad. They were They I the time, At know. didn’t got a guy who they they but only small things, of publications, made a couple I experience. teaching And I had no nothing specific. a good relationship quickly I developed was 27. Very with the students, and it was not a question anymore, were ideas, and they saw I had different they because hungry it. for WW much go too but I didn’t I had Ruder, way, in 1964. In a I arrived see When you me. he accepted why know I don’t his classes. to the best example, Helmut Schmid, he is probably people like very much, Harry Gottschalk Fritz Lutz in a way, Hans-Rudolf also LP education. your about more you ask to like I would you at Basel in 1968, teach started to you Before Ruder have you at the school. Did studied previously as a teacher? in his type-design classes, very Adrian Frutiger-oriented. in his type-design very Frutiger-oriented. classes, Adrian alphabets in different today see can the things you Most of very were teachers of A lot in Basel. forbidden were stubborn.

No, Basel was a very individual place. You could say I say could You was a very Basel place. individual No, Hofmann in Basel. teachers tolerant the most was one of system very specific was also had a kind of open, but he WW

LP instead of Ruder. of instead surprised to see you you see surprised to of students were were students of program, I think a lotprogram, really teach in the new in the new teach really pretty ill and couldn’t ill and couldn’t pretty LP As became Ruder

would be the assistant to Ruder. the assistant to be would against the school. The idea when they opened the new program in 1968 was that I in 1968 program opened the new The idea when they against the school. liked my work though. The reason they hired me is a phenomenon, because I fought I fought because me is a phenomenon, hired they though. The reason work my liked good personality, intelligent person but for me not crazy enough, too stubborn. He me not crazy enough, too but for person intelligent good personality, Boller, they were all Ruder’s fans. They admired Ruder. Ruder was a great educator, educator, Ruder was a great Ruder. admired They all Ruder’s fans. were they Boller,

the forefront? So do you think you brought the aspect of individuality to individuality to the aspect of brought you think you So do Wolfgang Weingart 19

WhatLP about Hofmann, did you feel closer to the way he taught than to Ruder?

WW WereLP you close to Helmut Schmid? I didn’t feel close to anyone. Were you at the school at the They taught in their way. I had same time? nothing to do with Ruder’s teaching method, only the discipline. We love to teach WW and be with students, that Yeah, yeah. Schmid is a was a common point. difficult person. LP How come? Hofmann WW His personality is not easy. I was probably not easy, because I had Teachdifferent ideas to him. He is a Ruder fan. You can’t say anything against Ruder, he gets really mad. You know his books; he is still a very active person in the field. He lives in Osaka.

LPI saw Jean-Pierre Graber recently. He showed me a note from Jan Tschichold. He told me he will send it to you soon.

WW You saw Jean-Pierre Graber? He disappeared about 10 years ago and nobody knew where he was. I worked with him a lot. He was very easy to work with, but he was not the same as Hostettler. No personality is replaceable. I didn’t take him as seriously as I did Hostettler.

WhatLP was the reason that people contributed to TM?

WW For God! We didn’t get a lot of money. It was also a good opportunity. You couldn’t find a lot of publications where you could make a page the

NewYorkTimes Interview 20 LP Is What about the new generation? anyone? there WW his last work like didn’t I Martin Woodtli, it. But the I like much, but in general so My idea was mine. is not generation new than only typography. more teach to Everybody was thought typography hands dirty. stubborn, made your boring, Who is your biggest inspiration? biggest your Who is WW in more me inspired Hofmann to answer. It is difficult and the discipline. way, systematic in a teaching of terms So with students didactically. communicate to And how El Lissitzky, me. is a veryHofmann to important person Zwart.Piet LP I had to change all these change all these I had to feelings negative kind of students. I had to in many I design. So bring graphic a bridge betweencreated typography and graphic my design. That was one of so-called tricks. way you wanted. Publishers of other magazines would have say, “This is say, have magazines would of other Publishers wanted. you way think this empty is not space didn’t They me money.” it costs empty space, and that is too this, like “I don’t say, would Or they it is necessary. empty, do anything I wanted, TM. I could with problems these have small.” I didn’t said, they and me, from work get unique could they saw that They anything. tolerant. totally was also Graber Jean-Pierre “OK, will do it, no problem.” we Weingart

or me, typography is or me, a triangular relationship between design idea, typographic elements, and printing technique.

F Hofmann WTypographer and graphic designer

Interview with Wolfgang Weingart

Typographische Monatsblätter www.tm-research-archive.ch