Art Deco Typography and Graphic Design

Mise en page

Lavishly illustrated with photomontages, collages, and tip-ins, Mise en page, The Theory and Practice of Layout is a visual feast. Conceived by Parisian printer and advertising innovator Alfred Tolmer, the work stands as a manifesto for modern design. Drawing from art and design history, Tolmer delivers practical instruction through experimental techniques and materials.

Wendingen

Dutch architect Hendricus Theodorus Wijdeveld was the editor and frequent designer of avant-garde magazine, Wendingen. This 1924 issue precedes the 1925 French expo, but Wijdeveld’s architectural lettering—made with rules (rectangular metal type blocks)—has a lot in common with other Art Deco forms.

Indonesian Theater Programs

Suprapto Sukonto designed these covers in Semarang, Indonesia between 1931 and 1934. He was perhaps influenced by Hendrik Wijdeveld (see above), but with a style all his own.

Colour in Advertising

Joseph Binder was an Austrian-born graphic designer who trained as a lithographer and studied at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. Renowned for his poster work, he published the influential book Colour in Advertising in 1934, which articulated his modern approach to commercial graphics and the psychological impact of color in design.

Ross F. George & Speedball

Ross F. George was an American sign painter, lettering artist, and inventor, best known as the inventor of the Speedball pen and original author of the Speedball Text Book, which trained generations in various styles of lettering. Many of his alphabets have Art Deco’s trademark features: low-waisted letters, geometric forms, and high stroke contrast. Letterform Archive holds his personal archive—including original alphabets, prototype pens, showcards, photographs, and manuscripts.

Lettering Manuals by Samuel Welo

Like George, Samuel Welo aimed to show what artists and designers could achieve through lettering, authoring several manuals in the 1920s and ’30s. The Archive holds several of these books, including 1927’s Studio Handbook which presents over 250 pages of alphabets, including a section of “Modern Alphabets”, many that could be classified as early Art Deco.

Image: Internet Archive

Indépendant Type Specimen

Designed in 1930 by Jos Dufour and Joan Collette for Belgian foundry Etablissements Plantin S.A., Indépendant is an early and successful exemplar of the bold, chunky class of typefaces associated with Art Deco.

Milton Glaser’s Baby Teeth is a 1960s revival of this style. And in 2025 Typozon revisited it for Chosmos. (See it featured in the Archive Salon below.)

現代商業美術全集

The Complete Commercial Artist is a groundbreaking 24-volume anthology from late‑1920s Japan that spans typography, posters, signage, shop displays, and more. It chronicled traditional letterforms, Japan’s evolving writing system, and the convergence of Eastern and Western modernism.

Walter Huxley’s Logo Sketchbook

As a designer in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, Walter Huxley (1890–1955) was a celebrated proponent of the pared-back streamline style. His 1935 typeface for ATF, Huxley Vertical, became one of the most popular ways to imbue printing with this Deco flavor. We are honored to hold a 1930s sketchbook from Huxley’s archive, including original maquettes for logos and a letterhead design for the U.S. release of Futura.

Lettres Décoratives

Coming soon from Letterform Archive Books is a splendid overview of French sign painter portfolios. Among the 12 featured titles is Modèles de lettres modernes (Models of Modern Letters), circa 1932. Active in Paris from the mid-1920s, Georges Léculier specialized in interior decoration and illustrated Art Deco interiors.

32 Alphabets Modernes

Another Parisian sourcebook from the 1930s, this catalog of “modern alphabets & numbers” provided sign makers with models of the Art Deco styles du jour. For more French lettering portfolios, see the upcoming book, Lettres Décoratives.

Gujarati Type Foundry’s 1937
Specimen Book

This catalog from the Gujarati Type Foundry offers a comprehensive glimpse into India's rich typographic heritage of the early 20th century. It also includes quite a few typefaces and ornaments that had their origins in Art Deco design.

Typefaces Inspired by the Bauhaus

The famous German school’s modern ideals inspired typefaces that share characteristics with Art Deco letters—from geometry to abstraction.

Ludmila Hellmann-Kavalla

Austrian artist Mila Kavalla studied fashion in school, but became an accomplished illustrator and designer. The Archive’s wide-ranging collection of her original artwork includes lettering and layouts from the 1940s–50s that exude the natural progression of Art Deco into mid-century design.

Diamond Wooden Type Works

A curious 1975 catalog from Meerut, India, presents type specimens in Latin, Gujarati, Devanagari, Bengali, and Odia scripts, alongside Art Deco inspired geometric letterforms adapted for Indian scripts. It also features wood type designs for Art Deco inspired fonts like Blippo, Baby Fat, and Dubbeldik with a few complementary designs in Indian scripts.

Charter Member Keepsake

When Letterform Archive launched our membership program in 2019, Angie Wang and Mark Fox designed this beautiful certificate that subtly echoes the Archive’s Art Deco collection, from the Bifur-derived letterforms to the metallic ink.

Street Type Archive: Balasinorus Deco

Balasinorosaurus Deco a zine by photographer Aashim Tyagi, spotlights Balasinor, Gujarat’s vivid Indo‑Deco scene, showcasing stunning Art Deco–inspired Gujarati and Devanagari lettering featured on local homes. This charming exploration highlights how the movement’s geometric elegance was uniquely interpreted in Indian vernacular design, revisiting mid-century aesthetics through a regional lens.