Writing

Two contrary views of religion are engaged in a momentous struggle for the human spirit. While religion is, for one, endowed with answers to the fundamental questions of existence, for the other there is only the relentless silence of the abyss. Since life is constituted in vulnerability, answers, which attest to offer a counterbalance to the terrifying abyss would have considerable appeal. Unfortunately, the guarantor of those answers has been steadily eroded from the hearts of man until His absence has become even more disturbing than the silent terror itself. Faced with His absence, those sects, which are addicted to answers, have been forced to withdraw behind the confines of fundamentalism in hopes that their hymns of fidelity will entice the Almighty’s return.

Universe: (Adrian Frutiger 1957). Released in 1957, Universe was one of a host of neogrotesque faces, which participated in the displacement of the geometric sans serifs, made popular in the 1930’s and 40’s. The 1950’s were a time when the modernity of the Bauhaus was being transformed into an international style. It was also a moment when multinational business began its global reach to which the universality of the grotesque forms proved useful.

Folio: (Konrad Bauer/Walter Baum 1956): Grotesque forms have been beaten against the shoreline of typography ever since their invention in 1816, but it was not until the 3rd wave that they washed away their competition. The first wave came in the 19th century when their simple construction and sturdy stroking allowed those primitive forefathers to withstand the rough printing conditions of the early “machine age” and their heavy features also allowed them to attract the rough and ready attention necessary for advertising during its infancy. Despite being denigrated for their formal crudity, they became a staple diet to the emerging marketing culture by the middle of that century, but insofar as that first wave struck during the dark hours of typography and did not sink into the typographic water table, their usefulness was washed away as the tides of early industry receded into history.