in several colours. They are essentially restrained in style (some would say
they are actually ‘under-designed’ - better than being ‘over-designed’) but
with all of Tschichold’s meticulous attention to detail. Mostly set in
Garamond and printed on toned Basingwerk Parchment, they do not carry
the names of either designer or printer.

In i960, Otto Maier in Ravensburg published Erfreuliche Drucksachen
durch gute Typographie - ‘Pleasant printed matter through good typography’
- a handbook in which Tschichold aimed to teach the public (not students,
compositors or printers) what good lettering and typography is all about. An
excellent idea, it was never translated into English; but modern printing
technology soon made much of its background obsolete.

Tschichold’s last important typographical commission was to design a new
typeface. A group of German master printers decided that they required a
type that would appear the same whether it was set by hand from foundry
type or machine-set by Monotype or Linotype, and could therefore be
interchanged. It should also be easy and pleasant to read and suitable for all
printing purposes. Something like Garamond was suggested, but
approximately five per cent narrower, and it should be available in roman,
italic, and semi-bold. ‘Such a brief’, observed John Dreyfus in the Penrose
Annual of 1968, ‘to many type designers would have appeared not merely
daunting but dispiriting.’ Tschichold was given the commission and
performed it with enthusiasm and skill. The new type, christened ‘Sabon’,
was manufactured in Frankfurt. It was first used in 1966 and was
immediately and widely praised. Sebastian Carter, in his Twentieth Century
Type Designers, writes of it: ‘Sabon is an admirable face, strong yet
restrained...The roman capitals in particular are so handsome that one
regrets that no titling fount was produced...’ Tschichold’s drawings for
Sabon, with his own annotations, have been occasionally reproduced and are
a typographical education in themselves.

From early in his career, Tschichold was greatly interested in Japanese and
more especially Chinese calligraphy and printing. In 1940 he published Der
frühe chinesische Farbendruck (‘Early Chinese Colour Printing’), and one of
his last published books contained beautiful colour reproductions of Chinese
colour printing: Die Bildersammlung der Zehnbambushalle (Rentsch,
Switzerland, 1970), published in English in 1972 by Lund Humphries as
Chinese Colour Prints from the Ten Bamboo Studio.

Tschichold’s scholarship in this subject (as in so many others) was immense.

He researched it in the British Museum whenever he was in London, and I
remember his astonishment when we found that Robert van Gulik, one of his
most respected authorities on Chinese colour printing, was also the author of
my then favourite series of thrillers about Judge Dee.

A minor but rewarding activity during these years was Tschichold’s ability to
persuade firms to sponsor reproductions, often in colour and in large sizes, of
graphic work of historical importance, for giving away as New Year gifts,
both by Edith and Jan and by the firm concerned. A fine example was entitled
‘The oldest printed poster made for an established tradesman: Paris, circa
1560’. It measured 386 x 275 mm and reproduced a poster engraved in wood
or metal for a Parisian milliner and hosier, Pierre Baudeau. Tschichold had
found it poorly reproduced in an old bookseller’s catalogue, where its
importance had not been realised. From internal evidence he dated it to about
1560, ‘in the period when silk stockings, which had hitherto been worn only
at court, were gradually becoming generally fashionable’. It was now
reproduced, with Tschichold’s retouching, at its true size in both black-and-
white and heightened with eight printed colours: the original would certainly
have been hand-coloured. The generous sponsor of this magnificent trifle was
Clichés Schwitter, Basel & Zurich. Versions were printed in both German and
English (see p. 120).

Like all good typographers Tschichold collected printed ephemera, including
old engraved trade cards, modern orange papers and Victoriana. He had a
special and valuable collection of early writing books, and also collected any
scraps of old paper he could find, which he used, when suitable, for repairing
the torn page of a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century writing book. These he
could repair with professional skill.

In 1968 the Tschicholds left Basel and moved everything to a small house in
the Tessin Italian-speaking area of Switzerland above Locarno, facing south,
which they had previously built and used as a holiday home. The house had
a beautiful, small garden and three separate book-lined rooms used by
Tschichold as studies. They are shown as photographs in Leben und Werk des
Typographen Jan Tschichold, published by Verlag der Kunst, Dresden in 1977-

Jan Tschichold died of cancer in Locarno Hospital on 11 August 1974 - sadly
early, but with many honours and a lifetime’s work that is still being more and
more widely appreciated.