David Jury

Mid-Century Type is a fascinating visual exploration of how, in the middle decades of the last century, the typographer became an independent, influential contributor to a fast-developing technological world of communications. At the close of the Second World War, designers were recognized for the first time as having an essential role to play in the rebuilding of economies, infrastructure and public morale, yet typography remained a vague and largely unacknowledged profession. This perception changed dramatically between 1945 and 1965, a period of exceptional creativity. Phototypesetting and offset lithographic printing coalesced to provide full-colour reproduction, which in turn vastly increased sales of all printed material, but especially books and magazines. Technological advancements allowed film and TV title sequences to became longer and more sophisticated. As opportunities for travel increased, the design of motorway and airport signage required typographic expertise. All of this drew typographers into newly established specialist fields of printed and screen media. Finally, the cultural value of the typographer’s work could be equated with that of the artist, poet, author and film director. Mid-Century Type charts this meteoric rise of the typographer during the early post-war decades. Each chapter is devoted to a particular design activity in which typography played a significant role, from type design and corporate identity to advertising and film and television. David Jury’s text offers fresh insight into the groundbreaking work of an array of European and American typographers, and is accompanied by over 500 illustrations.

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