"Humane Modernism" and international typographic style

Double Elephant19 January 2012 · 06:58

Hi I'm researching the crossover between architecture and typography and one of the areas I'm keen to learn more about, that's currently unclear to me, is Humane Modernism… does anyone know what this means in typographic terms?

Also, does anyone know if certain serif typefaces were used by practitioners of "the international style"? I'm guessing it was all sans serif, but some sans typefaces have humanist qualities that could make them good for long text settings, when it comes to typesetting my report?

Indra Kupferschmid19 January 2012 · 09:14

Clarendons and Egyptians were used, too.
For example see the magazine “Style Industria” here: http://www.thisisdisplay.org/

Nick Shinn19 January 2012 · 11:40

This from a 1950s catalog for the Danish furniture company Illums Bolighus.
The types are Rockwell (or close to) and Monotype Grotesque Light.

Note that “squaring off” (forced justification) was used for small elements of display type, and this was often the case for type used in an architectural context, as names — it wasn’t all rag right.

dsb19 January 2012 · 12:10

I love that sample Nick, very nice.

The design store in Cambridge, MA called Design Research from the 1960's used a close-to-Rockwell typeface for their logo as well.

Captured from web.archive.org on 15 Oct 2013. view this capture