[This draft is very much incomplete. The documentation from the 1960s is spotty, though I have been spelunking in the archives for correspondence and minutes of official meetings, and several people have forwarded relevant documents to me. I welcome all corrections, expansions, and new information that anyone familiar with that era can give me. Consider this a beginning and a starting point for considering ATypI in the 1960s.]
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In the 1960s, the Association continued its efforts to achieve international protection for the designs of typefaces.
The 1960 Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held at the congress in Paris, but the Committee of Experts, formed the previous year and charged with recommending action on typeface protection, held its meetings in Geneva, beginning in July 1960. The committee seems not to have met in 1961, when the congress took place in Zandvoort, Netherlands, but it met again twice in Geneva in 1962, while that year’s congress and AGM took place in Verona.
The 1963 congress in Vienna saw the creation of the Typefounders Committee (which later changed its name to the Type Manufacturers Committee, presumably to be more inclusive of companies that made hot-metal typesetting equipment).
In 1964, the congress was held in London, at the newly opened University Printing House.
The Type Designers and Typographers Committee was formed at the 1965 congress in Zurich.
Mainz 1966
The Mainz congress in 1966 included a “Typographic Forum” and produced an exhibition called “Schrift in Unserer Zeit” (Type in our time), which was held at the Gutenberg Museum. In the accompanying illustrated catalog, president Charles Peignot described this as ATypI’s first annual exhibition and called it “an important milestone in our progress.” He made it clear that his intention was to organize similar exhibitions on an annual basis, in various European cities. He also emphasized that this exhibition included not only type itself but examples of how it was used. “In this way, we reach a fuller meaning of the word typography, which we understand to mean the art of arranging and printing type; we do not limit the term to type design.”
The exhibition was mounted with the cooperation of the German Typefounders’ Association (President H.G. Stempel and Secretary General Dr. Edward Born) and the help of Dr. Konrad F. Bauer and Hermann Zapf.
A second publication was also done then and presumably distributed at the congress: Erlesene Letterproben aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Selected letter samples from the past and present).
John Dreyfus takes over
At the 1967 AGM in Paris, Charles Peignot stepped down after ten years and John Dreyfus was elected as the association’s second president. This congress was held at UNESCO headquarters, a prestigious venue.
Matthew Carter observes an evolution in the nature of the annual meetings: “I believe the congress at UNESCO in Paris in 1967 was the first real conference with speakers, rather than just the committee meetings and AGM. That was a novel idea at the time, to have a program of talks and so on. As far as I remember, all of them since then have had a program, some degree of talks.”
Prague vs. Prague
The 1968 congress was going to be held in September in Prague, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the first printing in Czechoslovakia, but the Soviet invasion and repression of the Prague Spring made that both impractical and inadvisable. On short notice, the congress was moved to Frankfurt.
Nonetheless, to honor the anniversary ATypI members Colin Banks and John Miles put together a small bilingual book, titled Five Hundred Years/Pět Století, which was published in March 1969. John Dreyfus asked George D. Painter to write a short monograph for it, “Printing in Czechoslovakia in the Fifteenth Century,” which was translated into Czech. Dreyfus’s carefully worded introduction lists everyone involved in the project: “We are happy that these joint efforts have produced this printed token of our admiration of Czechoslovak achievements in printing.” The book was illustrated with photographs of early Czech printing held in the British Museum.
The next year, 1969, ATypI did go to Prague, with a congress whose theme was “Typographic Opportunities in the Computer Age.” The abrupt switch meant that many of the Czech printed materials for the ATypI congress carried the date “1968,” as though nothing had happened.
Finances & purpose
There was a great deal of debate among the officers of ATypI in the early 1960s about the direction the Association ought to take. The ongoing legal expenses of pursuing typeface protection were growing, and the question of whether Maitre Poulin, ATypI’s lawyer, was being cost-effective came up more than once. But it was clear that these efforts would inevitably cost money; the question was more about how to raise funds effectively. Apart from what were effectively subsidies by Charles Peignot himself, the main source of income seems to have been membership dues, which were apportioned according to the nature of the member: individual, corporate, institutional.
The debate continued about whether ATypI should confine itself to the issue of typeface protection or should engage in more public educational activities. By 1963, John Dreyfus, who had earlier expressed the opinion that ATypI ought to stick to typeface protection and not get involved in educational outreach, had changed his mind and felt that without expanding its interests and reach, the Association would have no future.
Triennale Internationale Typographique
In 1961, the board proposed holding the first of a series of typographic design competitions, a Triennale Internationale Typographique, and the membership approved this proposal at the AGM in Zandvoort in May. The competition and an accompanying exhibition would be held in Paris.
Originally the idea was to hold the first triennale in 1962, thought it quickly got moved to 1963. Hermann Zapf took over management of the event. He suggested at first that entries be sent to the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, and that the judging be held there, but in the general invitation that he sent out in August of that year, the plan was for a two-tier submission process: national delegates would receive preliminary submissions, then forward a selection of those to the ATypI secretariat in Paris; final judging would be done there.
“Invitation to participate in the T.I.T. – Paris 1962” (sent August 1961 by Hermann Zapf):
“All those who are connected with the Art of Typography will be invited by Monsieur Charles PEIGNOT (Paris), President of the ASSOCIATION TYPOGRAPHIQUE INTERNATIONALE (Geneva) to participate in the T.I.T. – PARIS ’62.”
Work published since 1955 would be eligible for this first Triennale; in the future, the eligibility period would be just the immediately preceding three years.
Entries would be submitted to the respective country delegates, along with entry fees; they would then be forwarded to the Secretary General’s office in Paris. Submitted books would have to have already been selected in a national book-design competition, unless there is no such competition in a particular country. Submitted works must have been already published; no work that has been specially done for this competition would be admissible.
Judging would take place in two stages: first a preliminary selection by a jury from each country, then an international jury (named by the 1962 AGM) would select the winners during the T.I.T. itself.
Winners to be shown first in Paris and then in traveling exhibitions in various cities and countries.
Copies of all the entries, both those selected by the national juries and those not selected, should be sent to the ATypI Documentation Center at the Gutenberg Museum, Mainz.
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Hermann Zapf was charged with organizing the event. In January 1962 Peignot asks Kurt Weidemann to help Zapf with the organizing. Venue would be the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
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[Letter from Kurt Weidemann, read at the 1962 meeting:]
Weidemann announced a change of date for the Triennale from Autumn 1963 to Spring 1964, “in order to eliminate all financial risks and to be sure that the T.I.T. will be a success.” Venue: Bibliothèque Nationale. Envisioning a “Patronage Committee” to finance this.
Proposed schedule:
AGM 1962:
final version of the invitation to participate
nomination of members for the International Jury
January 1963:
Advertising & publicity
Summer 1963:
Deadline for submissions
Catalog to be printed by the end of 1963. Exhibition opening would coincide with the AGM.
“The T.I.T. will be of an important publicity for the A.TYP.I. and will draw many new members to the Association.”
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At some point the board of ATypI learned that Aaron Burns, who had established an International Center for the Typographic Arts (ICTA) in New York, was planning his own international typographic design competition for 1964. This created an obvious problem.
Zapf wrote to Burns about the matter, trying to find ways to avoid any sort of conflict between the two events. One idea was that the ATypI competition might limit itself to European typography, and that the ICTA competition would channel any European submissions to ATypI. Zapf also suggested that the exhibitions that came out of each competition could be exchanged as traveling exhibitions.
I have not seen a reply from Burns, though Peignot refers in a July letter to Zapf to a report of a conversation between Jan van der Ploeg and Aaron Burns. Clearly the situation had not been resolved, as in that same letter Peignot wrote, “Personally, I refuse to postpone the exhibition, nor can I consider holding a second International Typographic Exhibition at the same time. That would be truly absurd.”
The minutes of the 1962 board meeting in Verona record that Peignot read a letter from Burns about his plan for a New York “exposition internationale” in 1964. This led to a “lively discussion” at the meeting. The board resolved to bring it up at the AGM and try to find a solution.
At some point Kurt Weidemann took over as principal organizer of the Triennale and Zapf stepped back into a secondary role. In July 1962, Weidemann told Zapf that Peignot was suggesting that they combine the two competitions, and Weidemann said, “I believe this is the only way to avoid confusion, and I also believe that it is beneficial and acceptable for both sides.”
It’s not clear that they ever did solve the conflict. Did ATypI ever hold its Triennale? Or did it get folded into the Burns exposition? I’m not sure. But Burns’s proposed competition did happen: it was called “Typomundus 20,” and the judging took place not in New York but in Toronto. In 1966 it resulted in a landmark volume, a memorable book called simply Typomundus 20. In the book, there is no mention of ATypI, though Kurt Weidemann is listed as one of the board of directors of the ICTA, and Hermann Zapf is on the International Advisory Board.
Licensing of typeface designs
In the 1960s, the issue of licensing of type designs became important. It wasn’t a new question; in 1932, at the exhortation of Maximilien Vox, Charles Peignot had negotiated a licensing deal with Bauer Types to introduce Futura into France under the name “Europe.” Similarly, in 1962 Bauer Types licensed the stylish new Vendome from Typofonderie Olive, for sale in Germany. But some type foundries, and especially the manufacturers of mechanical typesetting systems, were reluctant to license their designs, feeling that exclusivity was better than wide distribution and licensing fees.
The increasing popularity of phototypesetting only exacerbated the potential conflicts.
“Around the 1960s,” writes Wolfgang Hartmann in his memoir, “the managing directors of German and foreign type foundries were not yet fully aware of the consequences the new technologies would have on their business. Charles Peignot, influenced by Maximilien Vox‘s prophecy (‘Gutenberg est mort,’ meaning ‘Gutenberg is dead’), promoted the development of the Lumitype and invested in the production of matrices for phototypesetting.* Later, Berthold invested in a tabletop device, the Diatype, and Stempel also established a new department for the production of matrices for Linotype phototypesetting machines.” These ventures were not necessarily financial successes, but there was little question about the direction the industry was moving in.
*According to Matthew Carter, “Deberny Peignot only manufactured the fonts for the Lumitype machines (in the form of glass discs).”
Pricing typefaces
In 1966, ATypI sent out a questionnaire to a select list of type designers and typographers, asking their opinion on what the standard remuneration should be for the design of typefaces. Based on their responses, Ingeborg Hildebrandt, ATypI’s administrative secretary, sent out a draft document setting proposed rates.
Code moral
An essential part of the attempt to protect design copyright was the creation of the Moral Code (le Code moral), which all members of the Association were supposed to abide by. Work on drafting the Moral Code went on for several years, ending up with a version circulated to the members in 1963.
The 1963 version of the Code attempted to define the rights and obligations of typeface manufacturers. It proposed that any new typeface should have protection for a period of 35 years from its release; any adaptation of an existing typeface to a new technology, if it involved major revisions, should start the clock anew and give 35 years of protection. It would be up to a committee of experts appointed by the board of directors of ATypI to determine whether a typeface was new or not. Significantly, this was also supposed to apply to the mise-en-page, that is, to typographic page layouts, not just to typefaces. How this would be enforced, or even clearly delineated, was not clear.
The Moral Code envisioned an arbitration committee within ATypI that members would submit any disputes to, before resorting to the more drastic solution of taking them to court. The only time this came into effect would be later, in the 1970s.