Rodchenko

Did the rigor of the grid bring bread to the proletariats or liberation to the Gulag? Depends on whose manifesto you pulled from the press, or which agitprop poster you peeled from the wall. While these posters’ political impact may be unquantifiable, their design principles were precise—bold and geometric. Alongside architects, painters, and designers, Russian typographers in the early twentieth century were among the “artists in the service of the Revolution,” and, as the face of the printed message, their lettering aesthetic was considered critical to the movement. Constructivist letterforms were overwhelmingly capital, rectilinear, and unfailingly loud. The minimal urgency and objective rigor of form are captured in Paratype’s Rodchenko, designed by Tagir Safayev and named for the seminal Russian artist and co-founder of constructivism. Armed with the stentorian tenor of three weights, two widths, and multilingual OpenType, Rodchenko commands you to reject calisthenics with your comrades in favor of an underground printshop and ideologies of the new utopia. ANNA MALSBERGER