TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Mon Apr 15 05:31:11 EDT 2024

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ABOUT

Theo van Doesburg

Dutch cofounder (1883-1931) with Piet Mondriaan, Bart van der Leck, Anthony Kok, Vilmos Huszar and J.J.P. Oud of the De Stijl magazine in 1917. This was also the start of the De Stijl movement. Born Christiaan Emil Marie Küpper on August 30, 1883 in Utrecht as the son of the photographer Wilhelm Küpper and Henrietta Catherina Margadant. Early in his twenties he started using the name of his stepfather Theodorus Doesburg to sign his early paintings. His first exhibition was in 1908. He died in Davos, Switzerland, in 1931. In 1919 he created an alphabet by dividing a square into 25 equal smaller squares. This alphabet predates Bauhaus experimental types by Kurt Schwitters and others. van Doesburg's alphabet has been mimicked and digitized and used as inspiration by many. A partial list:

• Foundry Architype Van Doesburg (1996, David Quay and Freda Sack, The Foundry).
• Zwartvet (2002, Max Kisman, Holland Fonts).
• van Doesburg by Frank Nichols.
• Bonset (2008, Ricardo Cordoba): the name I.K. Bonset was used by van Doesburg in his Dada poetry. Bonset is a free FontStruct font.
• Theo (2003, Dan Pike) was inspired by the work of Theo van Doesburg and Theo Ballmer (1902-1965), both of whom created an alphabet based on a basic 5x5 grid system.
• Doesburg and Doesburg Fat by Jordan Harper.
• Theo Van Doesburg V4.0, a free font by Gonzalo Carretero.
• VanDoesburgBrokenFS and VanDoesburg (2002), free fonts by Manfred Klein.
• TwentyFourNinetyOne [2491] (2008) by Steve Mehallo.
• DeStijl, a free font by Austin Kurowski.
• Typeco De Stijl (2012, FontStruct) is by James Grieshaber.
• Distill (2009): A type family by Matt Desmond (MAD Type).
• Panoptica Doesburg (2003) is a unicase typeface Nick Shinn.

Els Hoek, Marleen Blokhuis, Ingrid Goovaerts, Natalie Kamphuys, et al. penned Theo Van Doesburg: Oeuvre Catalogus (2000, Centraal Museum). Picture of a dada poster by him. Page at Design History.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Theo van Doesburg
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INTERNAL LINKS
Dutch type design ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Dadaism ⦿ Bauhaus and type design ⦿ Cubist typefaces ⦿ De Stijl and type design ⦿ Typefaces and Wassily Kandinsky ⦿