LETTERS FROM THE AVANT GARDE: MODERN GRAPHIC DESIGN by Ellen Lupton and ElainLustig Cohen

Princeton Architectural Press, 1997 First Edition, 96 pp., 8 1/2" X 11" Softcover

Fine

Letters from the Avant-Garde presents designs for business ephemera -- including stationery, envelopes, postcards, and business cards -- created by F.T. Marinetti, André Breton, Herbert Bayer, Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, Mies van der Rohe, Jan Tschichold, Ladislav Sutnar, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and many others.

Working in Europe and the U.S. between 1909 and 1950, these designers used printed stationery to project the public identities of avant-garde movements to an international community, disseminating modernist theory and practice around the globe via the postal service. Letters from the Avant-Garde features over 150 illustrations, in color and black and white, of printed ephemera from the collections of Elaine Lustig Cohen and other sources. Letters from the Avant-Garde is an invaluable resource for all those interested in graphic design, typography, and the history of modernism.

Critical essays show how artists and designers mobilized the techniques of commercial communication to promote their ideals and ambitions. Gathered together for the first time, the materials presented in this book are typographic self-portraits of the most influential people and institutions in the development of modern design.