Typographie: Schrift und Graphik mit Letraset was an exhibition that ran in Darmstadt, München, and Zürich in 1978–79. This 8×8-inch 72-page catalog was designed by Christof Gassner and features his own work along with dozens of other designers who used Letraset.

Design: Christof Gassner

Design: Helmut Langer

Design: Christof Gassner. Promotional material for Deutsche Letraset. The last image was used for the cover of LetraTime.

Design: Friedrich Friedl

Design: Christof Gassner. German translation of a quote by Henri Michaux: “Qui s’est abaissé devant une fourmi, n’a plus à s’abaisser devant un lion.” – “Those who have bowed to an ant do not have to bow down before a lion.”

Design: Christof Gassner. German titles of various plays by Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About _, King Lear, Richard III. For more, see Schauspiel im ZDF.

Design: Christof Gassner. Various film titles: Le Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows), The Third Man, Daddy Long Legs, Scarface

As Steven Heller noted in this week’s interview for Lubalin 100, ITC Avant Garde Gothic has seen more than its share of misuse in the nearly 50 years since it was released. So much so, even early on, that its author Herb Lubalin is said to have regretted ever designing it. In many cases it’s the typeface’s many alternates and ligatures that are abused, but one designer who treated them with respect and skill is Christof Gassner. See his logo for Canton, for example, or these excellent booklets for German television network ZDF.

Gassner is a fan of Lubalin, and it’s apparent in his work. He didn’t hide his admiration in interviews, either. Two years after Lubalin’s death, Gassner was featured in U&lc, Vol. 10, No. 2 (June 1983):

“I have two big ideals (sic) for my typographical works: First, the calligraphers and book artists before Gutenberg: second, Herb Lubalin, who gave back, with his epochal work, the lost imagination to typography.”

From the same U&lc article:

Gassner’s work has appeared in U&lc before, but you wouldn't know it; each time the look is different, with new surprises in typographic design. It would be more apt to call his work typographic illustration, for he has a gift for making type talk to us, even when we don't understand the language. He was born in Zurich and was educated in the highly respected “Swiss” school of graphic design at the Kunstgewerbeschule. Upon graduation, he went to Germany and discovered, to his amazement, “There were other typefaces available than Helvetica.” This profound experience, he has aptly demonstrated in his inventive typographies.

The brochures featured here advertise theatrical programming on ZDF from 1979 to 1983. Each 21×19.8 cm issue has black-and-gold covers and three to six opening spreads of display typography, much of it masterfully set in Avant Garde, and some in other fantastical designs, including Gassner’s own typeface, Knirsch. All issues credit Gassner for graphic design and Jobst Barkewitz for production.

My thanks to Florian who graciously received my lucky find from a German dealer and scanned two favorite spreads from each booklet. We gladly add it to our small collection of Avant Garde Used Right.

Gassner substitutes umlauts with small-E alternatives, tucking them inside letters or between them.

Gassner may have pulled some of his lettering from the popular Lettera sourcebooks by Armin Haab and Walter Haettenschweiler. The flourished ‘L’, for example, is found in Lettera 2 and credited to a 16th-century Italian manuscript (namely the works of Vespasiano Amphiareo, 1554). The superornate Fraktur ‘N’ is from Paulus Franck’s Schatzkammer, Nuremberg, 1601.

‘SE’ and ‘SA’ appear to be custom Avant Garde ligatures. ‘A’ is from Romano, an alphabet designed by Spanish artist Ramón Stirling in the early 19th century and reprised in Lettera 3 (1968).

The 3-dimensional letters aren’t from Avant Garde Gothic, but rather based on a bold Futura.

LetraTime was a publication of Deutsche Letraset GmbH in Germany. This image comes from U&lc (Vol 2, No. 4). The cover design was a winner of ITC’s first “Upper and Lower Case International Typographics Competition”.

“Playboy” was Letraset’s initial name for Plaza and came with many alternate glyphs.

Thanks to Manuel Wesely for calling our attention to this example of a “type weight gradient”, the logo for loudspeaker manufacturer Canton. Christof Gassner designed the mark in 1974, the same year as Otl Aicher’s ERCO logo.