Zero: Hans Schleger--a Life of Design

Visible Language, 2002 by Banks, Colin

Abstract

When one has mastered the craft of typography the next trick is to move on up to the art of typography. Not many people can do that: Tschichold was one, Dick Elffers another; they could make marks on paper that rang clear and true, like the bells of a cathedral. Of recent times Tom Eckersley and Saul Bass produced print that achieved art with only a passing nod to typography; Hans Schleger's designs come somewhere in between.

Schleger's approach to design was forged in Germany where, initially, he seemed to have been attracted to the complexity of the subconscious, manifest in a Max Ernst-like surrealism. This was rapidly overcome by a reductionists' search for underlying form, a style that remained with him for the rest of his career; maybe this had something to do with his adopted name 'Zero.'

New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000 248 x 210mm, Illustrated, hardbound, 272 pages, $45. ISBN 1-56898-273-9

An economic migrant, he arrived in New York in 1924 and shortly after opened his own studio at 270 Madison Avenue; he offered a design service, advertising home-luxuries for the most part. He introduced the three-men symbol that came to represent Weber and Heilbroner, the mens' clothes stores (see figure 1). W&H advertising we are told, was driven by the then new idea that it is not necessary to put the product before the imaginative representation of the brand and its qualities, and it was imagination that Schleger had in abundance. The W&H advertising manager had gone to 270 Madison saying can you draw me an elephant for five dollars? To be told "I cannot draw anything for five dollars."

At this time Schleger wrote a lyrical description of approaching downtown Manhattan on the ferry and of the people going there to work, he stresses the upbeat nature of the beast where talent is encouraged and it is a reminder that 'the business of America is Business' a lesson he learned.

The Wall Street Crash brought him back to Berlin in 1929 and by that time his talent was acknowledged on both sides of the Atlantic, but he had one more citadel to conquer. A spell in the Berlin Office of the London Agency Crawfords, brought him into friendship with Ashley Havinden and later with Edward McKnight Kauffer, commercial artists as they were then called, both of whom were well established in London when Schleger moved there in 1932; on a path well beaten by Eric Mendelssohn and Walter Gropius, the Hungarians Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Brewer, and the Pole George Him. Zero's friends McKnight Kauffer and Marion Dorn, the textile designer, crossed the pond the other way, to London from the States.

Schleger owed a lot to Edward McKnight Kauffer, Kauffer worked at Crawford's in London from 1927 to 1929. When Schleger came on to London Kauffer generously introduced him to several of his clients. The familiar names of 'encouragers with patronage' appear: Jack Beddington at Shell, Frank Pick and Christian Barman at London Transport, Sir Stephen Talents at the Post Office and Lund Humphries the progressive printers who exhibited his work and later employed Jan Tschihold. But with the 1939 war, posters by Zero became the wallpaper of Metropolitan life here in London (see figure 2). Kauffer in my view also strongly influenced his style at that time, the famous flying birds poster seems to lend some of its dynamism to Schleger's Stop for Shell poster and there are other very different comparisons to be drawn. I think I can see something of Hans Erni also, a Prince of Draftsmen, and then the surrealism of Max Ernst.

One of my first jobs was working for multi-task design group led by Gabi Schreiber, who was like Schleger a Berliner; it was not an enriching experience. I had to revise their letterhead and was told "keep it as close as possible to Zero's original specification." I could not see what the fuss was about, it was clumsily set in Bodoni 135 and compromised between asymmetric and down the center arrangements. I dug back in the files and it was like unwrapping a pearl. What Schleger had originally given them was delicately balanced, like an Alexander Calder mobile; it was set in Walbaum Light and every word sang like music.

I never met him but stories about his pernickety engrossment in detail were rife, On rejection of his morning coffee: "Now this is how I like it; mix the milk and the coffee grains first and pour the water, whilst still boiling, from eighteen inches above the cup." Eminent designers both from Europe and the States were said to invariably to call by on 'Poppa Schleger' when in London. including Paul Rand who wrote the introduction to this book, Saul Bass and Lucian Bernhard.

Many of the designer's thoughts here are skillfully wrought Into his words:

Design can be disarming through simplicity. It does more than catch the eye. It can give shape to thought and feeling as the glass does to wine; Limitation produces form; Such people ask the designer to make chickens look like peacocks; Few advertisers are taking expert advice This is interesting considering how differently they behave when their health, property or liberty are at stake; Advertising should not be designed by us for them; and Advertising as a long term investment.