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Jan Dishcloth’s new Typography and Art Jan Dishcloth, a German typographer, book designer and writer stated the importance of art to design. In his ‘Elementary Typographer’ he explicitly referred to the Russian Supremacist movement with its foremost artists El Loyalists and Kashmir Maledict. Dishcloth’s applied designs and book layouts show formal connections to El Loyalists or Malachite’s art works. There are formal connections between Dishcloth’s book layouts and El Listings, as ell as Malachite’s artwork.
Both artists had a big influence on the Bauhaus, where Dishcloth got inspired for his new way to work: clear and open types, bars to accent the area without dissipating it and the repeated use of diagonals. El Loyalists uses lots of blank space and few colors to enable his audience for more Judgment and self-assignment. Dishcloth as well has clear letters and uses almost only the colors black, red and white, to not confuse his readers from the main topic.
His layout style or example writing the words vertical, using different sizes of the letters, separating words etc. What Dishcloth and Maledict have in common is especially the use of cubic forms. When comparing Dishcloth’s poster with Malachite’s “supremacist (1916-1917)” we can recognize the poor color pallet both artists were using. Further more both use one round element. However, the similarities between El Loyalists and Dishcloth are greater than between Maledict and Dishcloth. That may be because El Loyalists was a Typographer as well.
The connection between Maledict and Dishcloth must lay in the close relation that Maledict had to El Loyalists. In other words, the relationship between the two artists and their artworks are indirect. Maledict was El Listings mentor and a very abstract artist, “father of the separatism”. For example one of his most famous paintings was a black square, a black circle and a black cross – simple as possible. El Loyalists uses the abstract, dispersed elements all over the blank space, what contained the typical supremacist style.
All of the three artists work with similar forms as the three pictures above show: Squares, triangles, circles and lines. The colors black, white and red are also used in all of the pictures. In conclusion I consider Dishcloth’s approach as successful. He was one of the most important Typographers. His different usage of form, open and simple fonts and the let himself influence to create a brave and new way of typography and opened doors for actual and following artists. “To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic. ” – Picasso