Tejeira

Isaac Tejeira

Graphic Design

Professor Ferranto

April 21, 2014

Piet Zwart ‘Typotekt’

Piet Zwart was a Dutch architect who was noted mostly by his avant-garde

approaches in modern typography and design. His contemporary designs were of a similar

caliber to the work and innovation of the Bauhaus. He was deeply influenced by De Stijl,

Russian Constructivism and Dada art movement. Zwart never believed in belonging to a

particular artistic movement so he absorbed the best ideas of these three art styles and

broke apart to create his own work. Consequently, Zwart was able to create his first

typographical work and logo for the Vickers House Company. The Vickers House Company

gave Zwart opportunity to design advertisements and have his first popular work “Zagen,

boren, vijlen.” The way he assembled symbols, negative space, and letters, made his work

have unusual dynamic compositions. Since Zwart was a self-thought typographer, he didn’t

pay attention to the details of typography such as differentiating methods of upper and

lower case; As a result, he learned the basics from an 18-year-old apprentice that made

Zwart realized how little he knew about printing. Later, working for NKF Company for

advertisements, Zwart mastered these basic methods of typography. There, he found a new

style with the use of primary colors and photomontage. In the late 1920’s and early 1930’s,

the ‘Typotekt’ (Zwart liked being called ‘Typotekt,’ a hybrid of the words typographer and

architect, as he developed new designs that were built with typography.) was inspired by a

Bauhaus professor, László Moholy-Nagy, and focused in photography. Zwart became a

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lecturer and spent a year at the new Bauhaus campus in Dessau, where he stressed the

importance of photography in modern design and research. Also, in the 1930’s Zwart was

commissioned to design the book: “The Book of PTT,” which was targeted for children to

learn how to make use of the Dutch postal service.

Biography:

Born in North Holland in 1885. Piet Zwart attended The School of Applied Arts, where

professors were laidback and students had to teach among themselves. After working as an

architect, he focused on industrial design and typography for the rest of his life.

Titles:

• Typotekt

•pietZWART

Work:

NKF Catalogue Page 58-591927-1928295x210mmNFKhttp://www.iconofgraphics.com/Piet-Zwart/

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‘Hot Spots’1926250x168mmNKFhttp://www.iconofgraphics.com/Piet-Zwart/

Bruynzeel kitchen Drawing1937Bruynzeelhttp://www.iconofgraphics.com/Piet-Zwart/

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