¶ … Paul Renner, and his typography. Paul Renner was born in 1878, in Wernigerode, Germany. He died in 1956, in Hodingen, Germany. Despite his strict upbringing, during which he learnt the value of duty, of leadership and of responsibility, he was an artist in every sense: a painter, a designer, an author, but he is perhaps best remembered for his skills as a graphic designer, and in particular, as a designer of fonts. Paul Renner studied architecture and painting in Berlin, Munich and Karlsruhe; he then worked as a painter in Munich. From 1907 until 1917, he worked as a Production Assistant and Presentation Manager for Georg Muller Verlag in Munich. In 1911, he became one of the founders, along with Jan Tschichold, of a private school for illustration in Munich. During the years 1925-26, he was Head of the commercial art and typography department at the Frankfurter Kunstschule, and in 1926, he became Director of the city of Munich's Grafische Berufsschulen, and from 1927, the Meisterschule fur Deutschlands Buchdrucker.

In 1933, and very much as a representative of the German Reich, he was given total control over the design of the German section at the Milan Triennale, for which his talents were recognized, and where he received the Triennale's Grand Prix. In 1933, however, under suspicious circumstances, he was dismissed from teaching: it is said that he was arrested and dismissed from his post by the Nazi regime, after speaking out strongly against the regime (most loudly in his Kulturbolschewismus, the text which led to his arrest).

Following this, he again worked as a painter, from 1934 onwards, until his death in 1956. During this period, right up to his death, he wrote books and monographs on topic pertaining to typography, graphics, lettering and color studies.

As we have seen, Renner was a multi-talented artist, and was a central figure in the major artistic movements in Germany throughout the 1920's and the 1930's. He was also a talented book designer,...

Whilst undertaking this work, he wrote numerous books on the subject of graphic design, in particular the design of fonts: his Typografie als Kunst (Typography as Art) and Die Kunst der Typographie (The Art of Typography) were hailed in their time as greats, and are still considered to be amongst the most influential of such texts: indeed, it is said that with these books, he created a new standard for design.
In addition to his many artistic skills, such as painting and writing, he designed many popular fonts, many of which are still very much in use today: Plak (1928), Futura (1928), Futura Black (1929), Futura Schlagzeile (1932), Futura licht (1932), Ballade (1937), Renner Antiqua (1939), and Steile Futura (1952). Indeed, it is for his skills in designing fonts for which he is best known: his Futura still stands as a landmark of modern graphic design.

In the book Paul Renner: The Art of Typography by Christopher Burke, the political, economic and social forces that led Renner - and others - to develop the artistic movement in Germany are discussed. Burke argues that the shortages of the 1920's led the Bauhaus (the members of the artistic movement, Bauhaus) to link art and technology, in order to produce machine-made objects: Renner was very much a part of this movement, alongside Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, and his industrial designs were very much a production of this time.

Burke also reveals also interesting facets of Renner's life and work, and the connections between these and the political and social conditions of the time. For instance, throughout the 1940's, the Nazi party banned the 'Gothic' typeface, arguing that it was 'Jewish' and an 'abomination': this helps us to understand the reason for Renner's development of the Futura typeface.

What makes his most famous typeface 'Futura' so special? It is said by many to be a fusion, a bridge, between…