Emil Ruder Typography from the Inside: Helmut Schmid

Gärten Menschen Spiele" (gardens people play), 1960, Design: Emil Ruder / Armin Hofmann, 25 × 26 cm.
"In the 16th century, the morning glory was as yet a rare plant with us. Rikyu had an entire garden planted with it, which he cultivated with assiduous care. The fame of his convolvuli reached the ear of the Taiko, and he expressed a desire to see them, in consequence of which Rikyu invited him to a morning tea at his house. On the appointed day, the Taiko walked through the garden, but nowhere could he see any vestige of the convolvulus. The ground had been leveled and strewn with fine pebbles and sand. With sullen anger the despot entered the tea-room, but a sight awaited him there which completely restored his humor. On the tokonoma, in a rare bronze of Sung workmanship, lay a single morning glory – the queen of the whole garden!"
—From "The Book of Tea" by Kakuzo Okakura
When 28-year-old Emil Ruder was chosen to be teacher of typography at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel in 1942, he had a clear goal: "To strive for a typography as expression of its time, with rejection of pattern and imitation, with a feeling for real and honest material as the base of typography."
Armin Hofmann has written on the situation: "The design school in Basel... had to take a position at a time when the will for renewal was diametrically opposed. In contrast to Tschichold, Emil Ruder, who was the head of the course in typography at the time, saw the return to classical form as a disastrous interruption of progress... One could say that the efforts of the Basel school... laid the foundation for a new typographic consciousness..." The Basel school became a place searching for living and rhythmical typography. Visiting Ryoanji in Kyoto, the garden with 15 rhythmically placed stones, I always have the feeling of meeting Emil Ruder.
"The Oriental philosopher holds that the essence of created form depends on empty space. Without its hollow interior, a jug is merely a lump of clay, and it is only the emptiness that makes it into a vessel." Ruder's interpretation of a saying of the Tao Te Ching gives us an insight to his typography, where the unprinted gives life to the printed.
Ruder's main impact on typography, beside teaching, was his contributions to the Swiss magazine Typographische Monatsblätter, initiating heated debate in the design profession. The influence of TM on typography has yet to be evaluated. Ruder's article on drinking tea, typography, historicism, symmetry and asymmetry (TM 1952/No. 2, p. 83), finds reflections of his typography in Eastern philosophy.
"Nowhere do we find it expressed so beautifully that asymmetry is related to the simple, the plain and natural, as well as to the fresh and imaginative."
Ruder's magnum opus is "Typographie," a manual of design. It was published in 1967 at Niggli Verlag in Teufen and republished in 2001 in the original optical square. For over 20 years it was sold in an altered format and no one today wants to take responsibility for that. The new edition is reset, following the original. The works are untouched and the pagination of the original is retained despite Frutiger's preface from the fourth edition. Ruder was still working on his book when Hofmann had his published, with a preface by George Nelson. I asked Ruder about the preface in his book and he seemed surprised. "Herr Schmid, who can write the preface to my book?"
"Typographie," in its seventh printing in 2001, has so far been translated into nine languages, published in six countries: German - English - French, Teufen 1967 / Sulgen 2001; Slovenian-Croatian-German, Ljubljana 1977; English, New York 1981; Russian, Moscow 1982; Spanish-Portuguese, Barcelona 1983; Korean, Seoul 2001. To the frequently asked question of what is the difference between the Ruder typography and the Basel typography, Zurich typography, Swiss typography, Swiss style, the International style? I have a simple answer: substance and continuity. In Ruder I see a philosophy and an honesty which has never frozen into a style.
"The creative worker spares little thought for contemporary style, for he realizes that style is not something that can be deliberately created: it comes all unawares!"
Ruder's book designs reveal his inner self. No book is similar in format, in design, in the selection and treatment of typefaces. His preference for Univers is known; his use of serif type seems to be unknown. "Glaskunst aus Murano," exhibition catalogue for the Gewerbemuseum in 1955, is set in serif type. So is the book, "The World of Asclepios" (Bern: Hans Huber, 1966), with its new and logical bilingual typography.
"Ein Tag in Ronchamp," the book with photos by Paul and Esther Merkle of Le Corbusier's chapel, published in 1958 by Johannes Verlag in Switzerland and by Desclée de Brouwer in France, is a highlight of modern typography. Free of the heaviness of the Bauhaus, it is in a typography that was so fresh and new compared to the typography of that time. At my first meeting with Ruder, I wanted to show him my work. His answer was short: "I know what they are doing over there." I came from over there, from a Germany where "No experiments" was the slogan of a political party. "No experiments" seems to have been the typographers' motto, as a German designer indicates: "From Switzerland, especially from Basel, there came book-like objects, which looked completely different from what was permitted... One line stood near the edge on top and the other at the edge at the bottom, and in between there was a large white paper area... For us this kind of typography was tied to Basel and with its authoritative teacher, Emil Ruder."
The photos in "Ein Tag in Ronchamp" are placed horizontally or vertically on a grid. The text in Monotype Grotesk, the photo numbers replace page numbers and align with the column. A timeless design. Again the German designer: "The grid, the arrangement of type and picture on a book page according to a planned system was of course not Ruder's invention, but the strictest, most consistent, uncompromising application came from him and from his students."
This is a misunderstanding of the typography of the Ruder time. The grid, always referred to negatively by the ignorant, was never used in a mechanical way. It is not the grid that fails but the way the grid is developed and used. Karl Gerstner's flexible grid, designed for the German magazine Capital, appears sophisticated and complicated in the drawing. The final application does not come near expectations.
The simple grid applied in "Gärten Menschen Spiele" (Gardens People Games) published by Pharos Verlag Basel in 1960, shows flexibility and rhythmic variations. Ruder explains it in his book "Typographie": "A book containing pictures and text based on a grid pattern of nine squares. This pattern is the means of establishing a formal unity between the different amounts of text and different sizes and shapes of pictures. The pattern should not be conspicuous in the final result but should be concealed by the diversity of pictorial subjects and typographic values." Ruder was the master of natural and honest typography, which stands in contrast to the modernistic, the trendy, the empty. I have compared Emil Ruder with the Japanese teamaster Senno Rikyu. Hans-Rudolf Lutz preferred to have Ruder just as Ruder. And Harry Boller expressed what we all felt – that Emil Ruder was a visionary thinker and a teacher of values.
Ruder's teaching style was dynamic and entertaining, full of wit, stories, and criticism. I was attending his classes on book design and in my free time I typeset his thoughts. "Book design starts from the inside towards the outside, just as a house is planned from the inside out..." Contrary to writings by others, he was not a dogmatist but a teacher who guided the student in a supportive way. "Es hett ebbis schöns" (It has something nice about it) was a sign of approval. He used to carry lead type with him so as to express that typography begins with the letter.
"Contemporary typography is not based primarily on the flush of inspiration and striking idea. It is based on the grasp of the essential underlying laws of form, on thinking in connected wholes, so that it avoids both turgid rigidity and monotony and unmotivated arbitrary interpretation."
The typography that came out of the Basel school was resisted from many sides. Tschichold, who lived (like me) on Wettsteinallee near the school, was a constant critic. In 1958 he wrote: "Today's attempt at sans serif typography are based on the then 26-year-old author's earlier book... Nowadays in Basel and Switzerland, one is fed so much asymmetrical typography that one becomes sick of it." An arrogant statement that reveals ignorance of the development in typography.
In 1961, Ruder designed the TM special issue on Univers, the new typeface by the Swiss designer Adrian Frutiger. Using three sizes of Univers 55, reducing the text to a readable amount per page, Ruder arrived at a modern classic typography that made sans serif sociable. After the typography of order (ordnende typographie) with Akzidenz Grotesk, Ruder's typography with Univers looked refined and light and made Swiss design (that of Zurich and Ulm) appear heavy and dated.
"Die Vögel" (The Birds of Basel), a modern fairy tale by Marian Parry, published by Pharos Verlag Basel in 1967, is designed in a weightless and natural typography. The text is set in Univers 45 to harmonize with the fine illustrations.
"Spürst du die Schatten?" poems by Brigitte Meng, published in 1966 by Pharos Verlag Basel, is in a typography of simplicity and grace. It is printed in gray and typeset in one size of Univers 55, including the dust jacket. Hansrudolf Schwabe from Pharos Verlag sent me the book while I was working on "The Road to Basel" with a letter worthy of quoting: "When Brigitte Meng showed me the manuscript, I found it very good, but I had to tell her that poetry books never cover their cost. I went to Emil Ruder, with whom I had collaborated before and whom I knew from classes. To my question as to what to do, Ruder just went ahead and designed the book like it is. All books are sold out, I almost want to say – unfortunately."
After Ruder was elected director of the Gewerbeschule and the Gewerbemuseum in 1965, he initiated "Schriften des Gewerbemuseums Basel," booklets on design and related arts. In 1969, he began to design the bilingual book "Der Totentanz / La Danse Macabre" with pen-and-ink drawings by Véronique Filozof (he designed "Der Vogel Gryff" in 1964 with drawings by this artist). The German text is typeset, the French is handwritten. The text and drawings rest on the base of the column. The distinct difference between writing and printing was always of great concern to Ruder. With this book, his last, he expressed this beautifully. "Der Totentanz" was published by Pharos Verlag Basel in 1976 – six years after Emil Ruder's death.
Books that Ruder created in a crystal-clear typography are unobtrusive treasures. Designed from the inside out, they are the selected morning glories of the timeless typography, the Ruder typography.