Born April 2, 1902, in Leipzig, as Johannes Tzschichhold; died August 11, 1974, in Locarno, Switzerland, was a German calligrapher, typographer, type designer, poster artist, author, and teacher. He was one of the leading theorists of New Typography, and his most famous typeface is Sabon, a classical serif typeface.

Life and Work

Born into a family of lettering artists, Tschichold developed an early interest in calligraphy and book design. He studied at the Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Production in Leipzig and soon began teaching calligraphy and typography. In the early 1920s, after encountering Bauhaus ideas and artists such as László Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky, he became a key advocate of New Typography, promoting asymmetry, sans-serif typefaces, clarity, and functional design. His 1925 publication Elementare Typografie became a foundational text of modern graphic design.

From the mid-1920s onward, Tschichold worked as a designer, typographic consultant, and teacher in Germany and Switzerland. In 1933, he was dismissed from his position by the National Socialist regime and briefly imprisoned before emigrating to Switzerland. There, his work gradually shifted toward a more classical, humanist typographic approach, incorporating serif typefaces and traditional composition principles.

Between 1947 and 1949, Tschichold worked in England, where he played a decisive role in redesigning Penguin Books, establishing a coherent typographic system that became highly influential in modern book design. In 1966, he designed the typeface Sabon, notable for its consistent appearance across different typesetting systems.

Tschichold’s work bridged avant-garde modernism and classical typography, leaving a lasting impact on graphic design, book production, and typographic theory throughout the twentieth century.

Reference

Biography text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), German edition.
Retrieved January 19, 2026.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Tschichold