The "Neuland Question" to which Jonathan Hoefler refers involves not just Neuland, a "display" typeface hand-carved in 1923 by Rudolf Koch (Plate 1), but also Lithos, another "display" typeface digitally created in 1989 by Carol Twombly (Plate 2). The Question can be put simply: How did these two typefaces come to signify Africans and African-Americans, regardless of how a designer uses them, and regardless of the purpose for which their creators originally intended them? The investigation of this question has four parts: first, an examination of the environments in which Koch and Twombly created the original typefaces; second, an examination of the graphic culture that surrounded African-Americans prior to the creation of Neuland through a close viewing of tobacco ephemera; third, an examination of the Art Deco (French Modern) style, the graphic culture most prevalent in the United States at the time of Neuland's release; and finally, an examination of the ways designers use Neuland and Lithos today.
The rest of the piece -- which first appeared in Letterspace -- is available here.
Posts
