‘Design for Printing’ booklet – E. B. Eddy Paper Company, Carl Dair, 1947

Using the four basic elements of design; the square, circle, triangle and line, Carl Dair created a deceptively simple cover for Design for Printing. To reinforce the simplicity of the design Dair used the geometric typeface Futura, designed by Paul Renner. Futura was released by the German foundry, Bauer in 1927 and is the first commercially successful typeface whose design is based on those four basic elements. Futura was copied by many foundries. The version of Futura that Dair uses here is 20th Century, it was produced by Lanston Monotype in 1937. Linotype’s version, Spartan, was released in 1939.

A typical double page spread from Design for Printing. Dair explains each of the eight basic principles of design beginning on the left with a summary of the key features of each topic, followed on the right by examples showing how they can be applied. All the examples are illustrated with hand rendered rough layouts.