Commuter newspaper What was hinted at as a possibility at Tamedia's annual media conference last week is now a reality: 20 Minuten has had a visual makeover since Monday, with new typography that is wider, bolder and more tabloid-like. In the online forum on 20min.ch, there was also criticism that the commuter newspaper was apparently to be brought into line with Blick.

Corporate publishing Internal communication and employee magazines are gaining in importance. This is the conclusion of a recent study. The study, commissioned by the Forum Corporate Publishing FCP and conducted by TNS Emnid, examined the importance of employee magazines in Germany's top 500 companies. Those responsible for internal communication took part in the survey. The results of the study are summarized in a booklet that will be published by the FCP in mid-April.
The results show that employee magazines are considered to be highly competent in achieving important communication goals. They are better suited than any other medium to communicating restructuring or strategic realignment in a competent and understandable way. This is extremely important in a time of "change management" or "internal branding". For Ulrich Nies, Head of Information Coordination at BASF AG in Ludwigshafen, it is important to use professional communication to encourage employees to use their performance potential and creativity for the success of the company. For the communications experts interviewed, there is no doubt that employee magazines shape and develop the internal culture. Employee magazines are "the true soul of the company", according to the presentation of the study results.
Increased quality standardsJust as the journalistic quality of customer publications has prevailed in recent years, a growing number of companies are now recognizing the need to raise employee communication to a higher level in terms of content: "In-house communication is increasingly a matter for communication professionals and no longer for works councils, HR departments or specialist departments," notes FCP Managing Director Michael Höflich. Employee magazines have long since ceased to be media outlets for nice reports on company events or morale-boosting PR essays from the company management, but are now taking on a leading role in strategic corporate communication. However, this function can only be fulfilled with professionally prepared communication tools that inform employees comprehensively and honestly about strategies and current developments and enable them to share values, goals and ideas with the company.
The results of the study should be seen more as a declaration of intent or wishful thinking on the part of communications managers than as the status quo. When budgets are cut, the red pencil is still hastily applied to internal communications, especially employee magazines. Some people on the carpet still believe that the intranet is completely sufficient for informing employees, that it is much faster and, above all, significantly cheaper. Viviane Laissue, Head of Internal Communications at Swisscom, counters this: "The value of employee magazines is always underestimated. Having a magazine in my hand that informs me about my employer in a critical, in-depth and exciting way cannot be compensated for by sending it by e-mail or posting it on a notice board."
Daniel Steim is a member of the management of the CP agency Medianovis AG.
Daniel Steim

Typography began with Gutenberg, and thanks to the computer there are hardly any limits today - new fonts are created every day. "Typography is the staging of a message on the surface." That is probably the shortest definition. The only decisive factor for typographic success can therefore be the way in which the message is staged. There are all kinds of stagings in typography too, e.g. good and bad, excessive and staid, loud and quiet. So a typographer is to a certain extent a director of letters - and typography is the art of staging letters.
Typography has only existed since the day Johannes Gutenberg invented printing with movable type. Before that, everything to do with writing was calligraphy. Because Gutenberg was the first printer, he had to make everything he needed to practice his craft himself - including his letters. He couldn't just go into a store and order a box of lead or wooden letters. Gutenberg was therefore the first real type designer.
Printing works were quickly set up all over Europe. Every self-respecting duke wanted his own print shop. One of the biggest employers was the Vatican, which printed in over a hundred languages. All these printers had to produce their own typefaces. The typeface became a printing company's trademark. Whoever had the most beautiful typeface had the most orders. In the beginning, everyone printed Fraktur typefaces, simply trying to convert the beautiful calligraphic forms into movable type.
Absolute freedom of design
Only gradually did they find their own design language. The Italians had an advantage here, as the Roman capitalis was part of their everyday life. It is therefore not surprising that even the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson began to design his Fraktur letters with round forms (rotunda) shortly after the invention of letterpress printing in Venice (1470 to 1480). Today, however, Jenson is mainly known for his Roman, the Rotunda is almost forgotten.
The names of today's classic typefaces, such as Garamond or Bodoni, are all the surnames of famous printers of past centuries.
At some point, the art of cutting letters took on a life of its own and became a profession in its own right. Perhaps a printer had an employee who could cut much more beautiful letters than he could himself. All he then had to do was cut letters, which was hard work in those days - and certainly not a privilege. The new profession had already been invented.
It was not until the Industrial Revolution that the first type publishers emerged, offering type as a commodity. The employed designers usually remained nameless. At the beginning of the 20th century, some designers set up their own type foundries, e.g. Deberny & Peignot in France.
The rapid development from lead typesetting to phototypesetting to computer-controlled typesetting to the possibilities that every PC offers today has finally given typography and type designers absolute freedom of design. Anyone who thinks they can do it can now open their own "digital type foundry". And many do. Never before have so many new fonts been designed (and old ones copied) as today. The largest Internet font seller, myfonts.com, publishes around six new fonts a day, which, with 200 working days, amounts to 1200 new fonts a year. If we assume that 80 percent of these are copies of existing fonts and a further 10 percent are too amateurish to last, that still leaves 120 genuine new fonts per year. Incidentally, the trend here is clearly towards scripts (see box).
Who needs new fonts?
In our day-to-day work as graphic designers, we are constantly faced with the question of which typeface is right for the job or client.
Let's assume, for example, that a bank is the customer. Banks always want to appear reserved and thus inspire trust. They want to avoid their customers realizing that it's "only" about money. So the bank needs a font that has as little personality of its own as possible. The font of choice is Helvetica, which was originally developed specifically for this purpose. Unfortunately, however, most banks already use this Helvetica as their corporate font.
The decisive ladies and gentlemen of the fictitious customer would like to have Helvetica - but perhaps with a little more independence ... And the need for a new font has already arisen. For this very reason, a large number of grotesque fonts have been designed over the last 15 years. Banks wanted to stand out from their competitors without really distinguishing themselves. Many variations of Helvetica were created with imaginative names such as Swiss. But new classics were also born, such as Meta and Thesis. In a very short space of time, however, these have become so widespread among bank customers that they are already showing signs of wear and tear. And - the need for a new generation of "bank fonts" has already arisen. If we now equate "bank" with institution, then it quickly becomes apparent how widespread such a font really is.
This mechanism of eternally new demand is undergoing a parallel development in other industries. In publishing, for example, it was Times that was used by literally every publisher. Then, to stand out, some publishers used Sabon, only to be overtaken by the masses a few years later. The next reaction was for someone to dig up Eric Gill's beautiful Joanna, which is now also suffering the same fate.
Mainly for this reason - namely for a special purpose or client - we always need new fonts. Another reason is that someone has an idea for a new typeface or enjoys designing a new typeface.
About the authorGert Wiescher was infected by the typography bug during his childhood friendship with Erik Spiekermann. Wiescher has designed over 200 typefaces and written several books on typography. After working in Paris, Barcelona and Johannesburg, he has lived and worked as a freelance graphic designer and type designer in Munich for 30 years.
For the past year, he has concentrated exclusively on font development and markets his fonts himself. They can be purchased from all major online retailers. The latest range can always be found at www.myfonts.com/foundry/wiescherdesign or on his own website www.wiescher-design.de. He has named his latest font, a script with three styles that can be combined with each other, Donna Bodoni in honor of Bodoni's widow.
Gert Wiescher

The Swiss Advertising Association (SW) named Wirz agency head Geri Aebi communicator of the month for IWC's farewell ad. After Wirz Werbung had to hand over the Swiss watch brand's budget to Hamburg-based Jung von Matt/Alster, the agency once again showed 49 subjects from its campaign on an entire NZZ page. With charm and esprit, Wirz provided itself and IWC with plenty of free PR.

Security Up to now, hacker attacks on Apple computers have been an exception, but according to Symantec, this situation has changed as Mac OS X has increasingly become a target for malware (generic term for viruses, Trojans and worms), which was previously attracted by Microsoft and other Unix systems. According to Symantec, Apple has simply not been interesting enough for hackers. www.symantec.com

Reader research Leaders love the SonntagsZeitung a little more than the NZZ-Folio, but top leaders prefer the Folio.The MA Leader 2005, which is now being published for the third time with the LpA value, was conducted by means of interviews (2307 in German-speaking Switzerland, 1104 in French-speaking Switzerland) between September 27 and December 19, 2004. The basic population of all people who, as decision-makers in companies and authorities, meet the Wemf definitions (see box) is now 218,000 people. This is 13,000 fewer than in 2003, which shows that the redundancies of recent years have also left their mark on the executive floors - at least in German-speaking Switzerland (see chart).The reduction in the number of leaders in German-speaking Switzerland is certainly significant, as it has resulted in percentage gains in reach for some titles, even if they do not show any growth in absolute figures. As a result, some titles were able to increase their reach even if they lost readers among the leaders. One example among many is the SonntagsZeitung (SoZ), which remains extremely popular among leaders. Its loss from 5,000 to 78,000 readers is significant, but it still managed to increase its reach from 45.9 to 47 percent. Such reciprocal increases in reach are not uncommon, but the percentage change remains consistently within the statistical confidence range.
Top leaders love NZZ-Folio
But back to the Sonntagsblatt from Tamedia: its loss of the leader position makes a title from the NZZ publishing house the secret winner: the NZZ-Folio. It was already number 2 among the leaders, but the gap to the SoZ was still 7000 readers in 2003. However, because the Folio has now gained a significant 1000 readers.
4.6 percent while losing the SoZ Leader, the SoZ's lead in reach shrank from 3.9 to a marginal 0.4 percent. In addition, the NZZ-Folio has always been ahead among the top leaders, which is now becoming even more pronounced.
ted. With a reach of 53.8 percent, the monthly title from Falkenstrasse is the lone leader in the exquisite target group, now a full 4.8 percent ahead of SoZ.
The example of SoZ and NZZ-Folio also shows that most significant changes occur either in the percentage range or in the projection, rarely in both at the same time. Only the Berner Zeitung (BZ), Das Magazin, Facts and, in French-speaking Switzerland, PME-Magazine and L'Hebdo show a double significance. With the exception of Facts, these are all gains in reach. The largest increase of 4000 leaders (+4.1 percent) was recorded by BZ, primarily due to the integration of Bund, which is no longer reported separately. Although this may appear to be a relatively small gain despite double readership, it is understandable when one considers that the BZ had already overtaken the Bund in 2003 in terms of both the number of leaders and top leaders. Among the top leaders, the BZ "only" increased by 3,000, the same increase as Das Magazin. In percentage terms, however, PME-Magazine recorded the largest increase of all the reported titles, with a 5.2 percent rise among both Leaders and Top Leaders. L'Hebdo also gained 2000 leaders (+4.2 percent) and 1000 top leaders.
Facts and cash lost
Facts, on the other hand, is the title with the biggest losses, with 9,000 fewer leaders (-2.3 percent) and 2,000 fewer top leaders (-2.7 percent) in its readership. A small consolation: Cash also lost 8,000 leaders (-1.9 percent), but only 1,000 top leaders, followed by Bilanz, which lost 7,000 leaders (-0.3 percent) and 2,000 top leaders. How the relaunch and change of rhythm will affect the business magazine published by Jean Frey will only become clear in two years' time. By contrast, HandelsZeitung, Finanz und Wirtschaft, Stocks and Weltwoche remained stable.
Tagi has made up ground
It is also interesting to note that the NZZ and Tagi are exactly equally popular among the leaders; previously, the Tagi was always slightly ahead of the NZZ. Among the top leaders, on the other hand, the NZZ is still more popular, but the Tagi has made up significant ground and narrowed the clear gap somewhat.
What can be seen with the two daily newspapers is also reflected in their weekend combos with the respective Sunday paper from the same parent company. Among the top leaders, the NZZ Executive Weekend is almost as strong as Tamedia's full house. And although the full house is still clearly ahead among the leaders, its lead has narrowed.
The Mittelland Zeitung is participating in the MA Leader for the first time.
both target groups has a reach of just under 15 percent and
The KMU-Magazin is thus in third place among the seven Swiss-German daily newspapers surveyed. KMU-Magazin is also a newcomer, also reaching around 15 percent each of the leaders and top leaders, 4000 leaders and 2000 top leaders more than its competitor KMU-Manager.
For the MA Leader 2005, 2307 interviews were conducted in German-speaking Switzerland and 1104 in French-speaking Switzerland.
A reduction in the number of leaders can be observed in German-speaking Switzerland.
Interesting to see who is not (or no longer) includedNeither Brückenbauer nor CoopZeitung, the two largest Swiss titles, were included in the MA Leader. Even 20 Minuten, the
largest daily newspaper, is not taking part. What is even more surprising, however, is the absence of SonntagsBlick, which still took part until 2003. Its participation would actually be logical, as leaders are often celebrities who frequently appear in the SoBli (and Blick). However, a reason for the SoBli withdrawal was not available.
The tabloids in French-speaking Switzerland have also recently been looking for
mainly for the MA Leader. Edipresse has canceled the study for both Le Matin Semaine and Le Matin Dimanche, as well as for 24 Heures and Tribune de Genève. Marcel Siegenthaler, responsible for the advertising market at Edipresse, explains this primarily due to the low number of cases in French-speaking Switzerland. "It is therefore not possible to go into depth with this data," he says. He can also get what he needs from Mach Basic and Mach Consumer. However, Siegenthaler primarily cites image reasons for Edipresse leaving Bilan with MA Leader.
Also conspicuous by their absence are all women's magazines, as well as TV guides. Finally, the TCS-Blatt
Touring and all MA Leader car titles were absent. As if
Leader would go on foot. (mk)
Markus Knöpfli

Monitors The FlexScan L997 from Eizo is the first 21 inch 2-megapixel monitor with automatic image switching to portrait mode when the screen is rotated by 90°. This function is supported by all common operating systems such as Windows 2000 and XP as well as Macintosh OS 9 and X. Further highlights are the picture-in-picture function and the large color space, which enables the reproduction of the finest color gradients and grey shades even in dark tones. With its visible screen diagonal of 21.3 inches and high resolution of 1600 x 1200, the FlexScan L997 can easily display two A4 pages side by side. www.excom.ch

Press Christoph Mörgeli, Zurich SVP National Councillor and titular professor at the University of Zurich, has written a new book - published by the WOZ book publishing house, of all places. The work was advertised on a full page in the WOZ, where there was also a reference to the reading and signing session: 1.4.05, 10 a.m., Rote Fabrik Zurich. The April Fool's joke, which consisted of nothing but blank pages, was the brainchild of the creative team at the Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett agency.

Free newspapers SBB launched a tender for around one hundred newspaper boxes in Eastern Switzerland.
At the annual press conference on March 30, Tamedia CEO Martin Kall acted as if he could decide sometime in the second quarter whether 20 Minuten might want to launch in St. Gallen in the fall. But what Kall already knew at the time was that Tamedia only has until the end of April, at least if 20 Minuten is to be present at the SBB train stations in Zurich, Bern, Basel and Lucerne. This is the deadline that SBB has set in its "invitation procedure" for 70 to 100 box locations in Eastern Switzerland. And they sent the relevant documents to 20 Minuten and St. Galler Tagblatt AG before Easter. Beat-Gaudenz Schwarz, responsible for the invitation to tender at SBB-Immobilien, confirmed this when asked about the key points: SBB expects a free newspaper that appears five times a week and preferably in tabloid format. It should be stapled and round
50 percent editorial content. Advertising supplements are taboo. But regardless of who wins the contract in the end, Schwarz knows from the early days in Zurich: "If 20 Minuten wants to come, it will come anyway."
"SBB has never stopped us from launching," laughs Rolf Bollmann, Managing Director of 20 Minuten. However, he adds that "the partnership with SBB is very good". Nor does he know yet whether the Board of Directors - Kall, newspaper boss Jürg Brauchli and CFO Christoph Tonini - will give the green light for an Eastern Switzerland edition. However, he does not even have a meeting date yet to present his project. As in Central Switzerland, he is assuming a circulation of around 40,000 copies.
St. Galler Tagblatt AG (SGT) is also poring over the SBB tender. "We are still in the clarification phase," says SGT publishing director Daniel Ehrat. At best, a submission for the existing free newspaper Anzeiger St. Gallen, which is published in tabloid format but only once a week, could be considered. Ehrat is aware that the latter could be an obstacle and will therefore seek talks with SBB. "The SBB definition of a commuter newspaper is too tailored to 20 Minuten," he criticizes. "Why can't a weekly newspaper fulfill the same purpose?" he asks.
Markus Knöpfli

Semiconductor Catsky & Partner shows invisible innovations from Unaxis and the US marketing department in Florida was there live via video conference. A large committee from Unaxis Wafer Processing sat in Balzers, Liechtenstein, and listened to Catsky & Partner's ideas for a new image campaign. The presentation was given in English. "I had a bad feeling afterwards," admits agency head Claude Catsky. And wrongly so: the Americans in particular liked the creative visual approach, which is not often found in specialist advertising in the IT sector. The task was to position Unaxis as a leading provider of systems for coating and etching processes in semiconductor production. A complicated topic without sex appeal, which Catsky & Partner tackled cleverly: "We use two almost congruent images to illustrate that behind many a technical innovation in our everyday lives is an innovation from Unaxis," explains Claude Catsky. The simple visual message is deepened for the experts in the ad copy. The texts were created with the intensive collaboration of the marketing department in Florida. "It went back and forth umpteen times, we haggled over almost every single word," recalls Catsky.
The result is two double-page subjects that have been used in the international trade press in Europe since the beginning of March, and then primarily in the USA and Asia. The image advertisements are each reinforced by one of five product advertisements placed a few pages further back. They were also created by Catsky & Partner.
It is still a rare occurrence for a (small) Swiss agency to realize an international campaign. Catsky & Partner won the mandate in a two-stage competition that lasted more than two months. The competitors are not known.
Catsky & Partner earned its invitation to the pitch with a number of local measures that it had previously realized for Unaxis, such as a recruitment campaign for university graduates. The basic idea for the ads for Unaxis Wafer Processing had already been developed earlier as a proposal for a corporate image campaign and has now found a suitable place.
Put in the picture: Wafer technology from Unaxis is behind many a technical innovation in everyday life.

Digital TV The number of free-to-air TV channels has tripled in one fell swoop. Another kind of revolution: "La Grande Nation" has overcome the television stone age and now has more than a handful of TV stations. Since last week, "télévision numérique terrestre" (TNT) has been bringing digital TV quality to French homes, even without cable or satellite. All it takes is the purchase of a decoder starting at 79 euros and connection to a house antenna.But will the TV audience also jump at it to be able to consume new, in part still completely unknown small channels? The average French TV viewer has so far followed the herd instinct rather than a penchant for individualism and, according to most experts, is likely to remain more loyal to the previous "chaînes généralistes." Perhaps even more loyal than the English, for example, who still watch 82 percent of their traditional channels after the introduction of TNT.
Ideological mudslinging
The major TV stations naturally expect a certain loss of market share and advertising revenue, but are by no means panicking. Patrick Le Lay, president of the heavyweight TF 1, did everything he could to prevent the launch of TNT. But it wasn't just fear of the new competition that played a role here; the private chain suspected the left-wing director-
Le Lay even referred to the TNT project as "Marxist" for this reason. Now, under pressure from the state broadcasters - and with the connivance of head of state Jacques Chirac - the bourgeois Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, of all people, finally paved the way for terrestrial digital TV.
No wonder, Le Lay is now jumping on the bandwagon he couldn't stop and is joining several small stations. He suddenly no longer fears negative consequences for TF 1 from the outside. On the other hand, he predicts even tougher competition and an emphasis on "event television. By that, he means, for example, the current blockbuster format "Première Compagnie," in which celebrities in a tropical military barracks learn, for example, how to crawl through dirt and - even more difficult - to sit on their own mouths.
In view of the tremendous co
In the face of the competition for ratings that broadcasters like TF 1 and France 2 are throwing into the fray every day, TNT's youngsters will have a hard time of it. Their future prospects are also considered uncertain. The sales company TDF estimates that only about 5 million households will be equipped with a decoder in 2010; the media consultancy NPA assumes that 6.5 to 8.5 million sets will be sold. With just under 25 million households in France, these are not exactly overwhelming conditions.
Opinions differ widely on the future market shares of the existing and new stations. The media agency Carat Expert, for example, concludes in a detailed TNT study that the audience share of TF 1 could decline from the current 31.8 percent to about 26 percent; that of M6 is expected to drop from 12.5 percent to about 10 percent. By contrast, Carat gives TNT's "newcomers" a combined rating of a quarter to a third in the long term.
The stock exchange company SG Securities thinks this is greatly exaggerated. It is convinced that, as in Italy, the new TNT stations will only be able to grab a "microscopic market share." "Anyone who wants to acquire advertising with an audience share of less than one percent is embarking on a 'mission impossible,'" says Arnaud Frérault of SG Securities. This partly explains why commercials, at least among TNT novices, cost only between 10 and 300 euros in the initial phase.
Commercial late bloomers
The so-called "top dog bonus" also plays a major role in France. TF 1 and M6, which together have a share of around 44 percent, have an advertising share of no less than 77 percent because of the leader bonus. Mini stations with mini budgets can at best nibble away at that. Moreover, the loss of advertising for TF 1, France 2 and M6 should be largely compensated for by the imminent opening of French television to supermarket advertising. This is currently still prohibited, but from 2007, retailers such as Carrefour and Champion will also be allowed to run TV ads.
Carat assumes that the advertising second will then be 7 percent more expensive on average. The Paris-based agency estimates that the total volume could increase by up to 500 million euros. TF 1 is likely to take the lion's share at 200 million. By ten years from now, French TV advertising spending is expected to have risen from its current level of just under
6 billion to over 9 billion euros.
But the TNT juniors will have to be patient for now. Vincent Bolloré, a financial investor from Brittany, admits that his Direct 8 station won't be in the black until 2012 at the earliest. And Didier Beauclair of the "union des annonceurs" also predicts: "Advertisers are waiting until the first results are in. In other words, the TNT bomb is likely to be a late bloomer commercially.
The new TV channels will also compete with blockbuster formats such as "Première Compagnie".
Télévision à la françaiseThe French love freedom,
But normally, they are content with five free-access channels (six if you include the pay TV station Canal Plus). Anyone who thinks that the cultural nation of savoir vivre doesn't spend as much time in the henhouse is mistaken.
minutes, the French spend on average about the same amount of time in front of the "petit écran" as the other Europeans.
Only a quarter of all French people have a satellite dish, cable connection or broadband access to receive foreign channels by the dozen. The audience shares of the major French broadcasters are correspondingly high: TF 1, which was privatized in 1987 and belongs to the Bouygues construction group, is watched by almost a third of French people (31.8 percent). It is followed by the state broadcaster France 2, with a 20.5 percent share, and France 3, with 15.2 percent.
The pay channel Canal Plus on the fourth channel, founded in 1984, belongs to the Vivendi Group and is subscribed to by 3.8 percent of TV viewers. The educational channel France 5, in turn, reaches 6.7 percent of viewers during the day and is replaced in the evening by the Franco-German culture channel Arte (3.7 percent, compared with 0.8 percent in Germany). And Bertelsmann's M6, which is consumed primarily by young people, has steadily increased its audience to 12.5 percent in recent years.
As of last week, digital TNT allows reception of 14 more channels. Some already exist on cable. Others are completely new, such as Direct 8 (Bolloré Group) and
NT 1 (Group AB), which offer a general full-service program. Music is the focus of W9 (launched by M6), as well as NRJ 12, with which the radio station NRJ ventures into the television market. In addition, there is TMC (Télé-Monte-Carlo), in which TF 1 has a stake, and the state-owned cultural station France 4. In a second step, pay stations will be added. (brä)
Stefan Brändle, Paris

Design The wide range of image and text processing makes designers indifferent.Very many good types have a lot to do with type on a daily basis - but they don't seem to care about the typefaces (and their history) they work with, nor do they care about their optimum effect when using them. Nor do they care whether the blocks of text they move back and forth in their layout program will be sufficiently legible on paper or on the web.clarity in typography is the first commandment in any type design. Whether in a brochure, in a book, on a poster or in a magazine: The designers are not the main thing. They are the puppeteers who make the typefaces and type blocks dance. But designers have to be in the background, acting as a director of the typeface and not pushing themselves forward. Designers do not work for themselves, not even for their current understanding of design. They work solely for the recipient, the reader, the consumer of the printed matter: For all those who receive the message that they are supposed to understand and who then in the end, if everything comes together correctly, may also perceive the conveyed message as beautiful, valuable or even "just" informative.
Today we have a wide range of possibilities in image and text editing. To a certain extent, we are the sorcerer's apprentices of the electronic age. However, the simpler something seems to be, the more we have to be careful that our own simplicity doesn't peek out of every document. But precisely because everything seems so simple, many desktop designers make it particularly easy for themselves: not only are they faster than the "old" typesetters and graphic designers, they are also more superficial, indifferent and confused.
We have more clutter today than in the past: cramped, overcrowded and chaotic. Overcrowding in everything: pictures that are too colorful, too large, one inside the other, on top of each other, overly colorful, little white - and some black for reading. Every artist knows that the color of the printing medium, the material, has an effect first; white comes first, then the drawing, the line, the writing, and only then comes the decoration, the picture and the color.
What we urgently need is respect for the legibility of a text. But what is legible? What I like to look at when I read it, what flows easily and beautifully into my eyes.
Otto Dörries