We might lend a Goudy pattern or two if needed:
http://www.p22.com/lanston/products/californian.html
or some monotype matrices. Contact me offlist if you wish.

Good choices. Most Czech type of the period should work well with this. The late nineteenth-century British revival of Caslon, and the great success of Monotype Baskerville, could be thought of as encouraged by a mild patriotism. Even Times Roman was designed, Morison claimed, to be “English”.

You have a lot of great stuff covered already. What I would definitely add
however is the ongoing saga of the fate of Gaelic, a politically-charged
typographic roller-coaster ride. Let me know if you need leads on that.

And/but I would ask:
Is this limited to Latin type?

hhp

I think that Bauhaus and Swiss design were in a way intended to be anti-nationalist, and to a certain extent they succeeded. The championing of sans for text—which was neither German nor the custom elsewhere—was an important part of this. And so was the effort at being ’neutral’. If you compare Futura and Goudy Sans you have a very striking difference in direction. So I think the anti-nationalism thing would be an interesting contrary note in the exhibition.

> the anti-nationalism thing would be an interesting contrary note

Very good idea - it would make for a great “side-bar” I think.
(Although ironically such movements do tend to become their own “nation”s! :-)

hhp

Thanks for the encouragement and the great tips already. Keep them coming!

On Morison: do you have a citation for the “English” claim about TR? I’d be very interested to work that in.

On Gaelic: a superbly relevant idea that hadn’t occurred to me. I would love leads on it. (I just browsed here which hinted at the roller-coaster ride.)

On non-Latin type: I am open to ideas beyond Latin type. That said, the research for the exhibition will be done by me and my graduate students, so language may prove an obstacle for some areas; moreover, to some extent the exhibition must be built around the objects that are accessible and available for display, which may prove limiting too. On the other other hand, the borders between Latin and other letterforms might be the very most important spots to investigate the role of nationalism. And I would certainly expect that with Russian nationalism and Communist internationalism at play, issues in Cyrillic type design of the period might be fascinating.

Thanks again for your stimulating input!

> So I think the anti-nationalism thing would be an interesting contrary note in the exhibition.

Thanks, that’s certainly one I intend to include. (In my mind I had already placed it under the “Weimar modernization” topic, but your post rightly shows that I should be more explicit in my proposal.)

Gaelic: I’ll put you in touch with Matha Standun - he’s the expert.

Non-Latin: I’ll have to think how it applies to your specific
time period... But perhaps the best case is the application of
Linotype news setting to Arabic (and to a lesser extent, Greek).

hhp

>I had already placed it under the “Weimar modernization”

Right, the ’international style’ is in fact German-reading in origin, though it was intended to be international. So some extent that ’neutral’ feel is still more Germanic than anything else, and perhaps also Dutch. But it did conquer the world, in the form of Helvetica, so it became international. As Hrant points out, there are interesting ironies and contradictions.

Great idea for an exhibition!

Isn’t neutral/International more Swiss? Or at least is it not
generally seen as such? Maybe because after WWII people
can’t get themselves to think of Germans as such...

hhp

just an idea: an interesting topic could be the use of the occupiers or the suppresseds type in colonies (india, etc). maybe even the use of blackletter in german colonies.

william: sure, some of the origins of the swiss style came from germany, because german “refugees” came to switzerland and influenced the local graphic design. but still, isnt neutral a word normaly linked more with switzerland than germany?

on the “layer” of personal opinion: swiss people are way more neutral than german people. often, when swiss people stay “nice”, german people can get very direct (which is sometimes hard to interpret right, as a swiss guy).

With the imposition of Latin onto Vietnam by the French
being a superb example of that. But the timeframe is off.

hhp

yes, but the colonial history could be seen as one piece (with different facettes!), thus allowing to implement the viatnamese history, too.

Intriguing possibility, though would that be too much about the use of type rather than the design of it?

I wonder, were the types used in European colonies all imported, or was there any type design/production happening within the colonized territories?

was there any type design/production happening within the colonized territories?

In Canada, not until 1967.
But it has been noted that JEH Macdonald, had there been a Canadian type foundry in his day, would have p