(b Leipzig, 2 April 1902; d Locarno, 11 Aug 1974). German graphic designer and writer. He was the son of a sign painter and studied at the Academy of Book Design, Leipzig (1919-22), before working as a freelance designer. Influenced by Soviet Constructivism (especially the work of El Lissitzky) and the Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar in 1923 (see TYPOGRAPHY, fig. 5), he published 'Elementare Typographie' (Typographische Mitteilungen, Oct 1925) and Die neue Typographie (Berlin, 1928), widely read among young designers, in which he promoted the functional use of sans serif typefaces and asymmetrical layouts (see TYPOGRAPHY).

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