Jaroslav Benda 1882–1970 Book in selection of Most Beautiful Czech Books of 2019

The book, Jaroslav Benda 1882–1970, Typographic designs and letterforms, represents an historic first attempt to exhaustively capture the typographic work of the versatile Czech artist and type designer Jaroslav Benda. Its first part briefly outlines his personal and artistic development, while the second part, in five subchapters, characterizes it on the basis of numerous examples of his handwritten letterings and classifies it on the basis of dominant similarities with typographic categories in four main groups: Sans-serif letterforms, serif letterforms, calligraphic and freehand letterforms, and finally typeface designs. The transformations of their expression are followed from the beginning to the end of Benda’s work, not only on the basis of common letterform design on paper, but also in less-used materials such as metal, stone and glass.

The basis for capturing the character of Benda’s letterforms was created both by the authors of the collection of works in which Benda applied his typographic skill, as well as a number of unique artistic types in use they managed to find. In the conclusion of the book, the authors attempt to evaluate Benda’s typographical work with regard to the present, and reflect upon the meaning of the contemporary search for the “national character” of letterforms. The book concludes the overview of Benda’s life in dates and a highly valuable inventory of his typographic work, which is reproduced here to the extent possible. 

Author: Petra Dočekalová et al.
Concept: Tomáš Brousil, Petra Dočekalová, Radek Sidun, Jaroslav Tvrdoň 
Editor: Petra Dočekalová 
Texts: Tomáš Brousil, Petra Dočekalová, Karel Haloun, Šárka Šilarová, Jaroslav Tvrdoň, Lucie Urbánková 
Review: prof. Jan Solpera 
Special collaboration: Otakar Karlas, Lucie Urbánková 
Text review: Tomáš Brousil, Karel Haloun, Jaroslav Tvrdoň
Image catalogue: Petra Dočekalová, Lucie Urbánková 
Proofreading: Jiří Kettner
Translation: Douglas Arellanes 
Photos: Tomáš Brousil, Petra Dočekalová, Národní galerie v Praze, Macho & Chlapovič, Lucie Urbánková, Ladislav Vašek, Tomáš Zumr 
Photos of the book: Tomáš Zumr

Graphic design: Radek Sidun 
DTP: Zdeněk Franc 
Typefaces: Concorde, Futura, (both interpolations) 
Paper: Munken Lynx Rough 120gsm 
Cover paper: Munken Lynx Rough 300gsm 
Print: PB tisk a. s., Příbram, Czech Republic 
Imprint: 500 

Special Edition: On the occasion of the release of the publication and the fiftieth anniversary of Jaroslav Benda’s death, a small volume of hand-numbered copies of the cover was printed on special Plike Royal Blue 330g/m2 paper in the UMPRUM silkscreen workshop.

Publisher: Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, UMPRUM + Masaryk Univerzity, Brno, MUNI 
Release: Czech Edition October 2019, English Edition is planned for 2020/2021