Letters from the Avant-Garde: Modern Graphic Design

Letters from the Avant-Garde presents designs for business?ephemera -- including stationery, envelopes, postcards, and?business cards -- created by F.T. Marinetti, André?Breton, Herbert Bayer, Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, Mies van der Rohe,?Jan Tschichold, Ladislav Sutnar, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and many others.?

?Working in Europe and the U.S. between 1909 and 1950, these designers used?printed stationery to project the public identities of avant-garde?movements to an international community, disseminating modernist theory?and practice around the globe via the postal service. Letters from the?Avant-Garde features over 150 illustrations, in color and black and?white, of printed ephemera from the collections of Elaine Lustig Cohen and?other sources. Letters from the Avant-Garde is an invaluable?resource for all those interested in graphic design, typography, and the?history of modernism.?

?Critical essays show how artists and designers mobilized the techniques of?commercial communication to promote their ideals and ambitions. Gathered?together for the first time, the materials presented in this book are?typographic self-portraits of the most influential people and institutions?in the development of modern design.?