Seznam děl umělce Růžička Rudolf

Rudolph Ruzicka (1883–1978) prominent Czech-born American wood engraver, etcher, illustrator, typeface designer, and book designer. Ruzicka designed typefaces and wood engraving illustrations for Daniel Berkeley Updike's Merrymount Press, and was a designer for, and consultant to, the Mergenthaler Linotype Company for fifty years. He designed a number of seals and medals, including the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA).

Ruzicka emigrated to the United States from Bohemia at age ten, living first in Chicago where he took drawing lessons at the Hull House School before becoming an apprentice wood engraver. From 1900 to 1902 he attended further classes at the Chicago Art Institute. In 1903, he moved to New York to work as an engraver at the American Bank Note Company. In subsequent years he attended classes at both the Art Students League of New York and the New York School of Art.

In 1910, Ruzicka received his first major art commission from System magazine. Many exhibitions followed, including such venues as the Societe de la Gravure, Paris, the Grolier Club, and the Century Association, New York. In 1935 Ruzicka was awarded the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and in that same year began work with the Typographic Development staff at Mergenthaler Linotype Company, for which he was to produce typeface families including Fairfield, Lake Informal, Primer, and Ruzicka Freehand. He moved to Massachusetts in 1948 and eventually settled in Vermont.

Over the years, D. B. Updike and Ruzicka collaborated on a number of well-respected book designs, including Newark and the Grolier Club's Irving, as well as a fine series of Merrymount Press annual keepsakes. Ruzicka also provided substantial consulting for Updike's book Printing Types. Today Ruzicka's art is collected in the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Institute, Library of Congress, the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.


[edit] See also
List of AIGA medalists

[edit] References
Edward Connery Lathem, Rudolph Ruzicka: Speaking Reminiscently. New York: Grolier Club, 1986. (Memoirs)
Edward Connery Lathem and Elizabeth French Lathem (eds), D.B.U. and R.R.: Selected Extracts from Correspondence between Daniel Berkeley Updike and Rudolph Ruzicka, 1908 to 1941. New York: American Printing History Association, 1997.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_Ruzicka"
Categories: 1883 births | 1978 deaths | American artists | American illustrators | Typographers | Type designers | Czech-Americans | Czech expatriates | School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni
In: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_Ruzicka * * * * * "Type is made to be read", he reminded, "and that implies a reader. It may usefully be asked what does that all-important but often disregarded person expect? He expects nothing but to be left in optical ease while he pursues his reading."

Rudolf Ruzicka (1883–1978) was a consultant to Mergenthaler Linotype Company for 50 years. Considered a distinguished engraver in wood and metal and an accomplished and versatile artist and designer of his time, he was recommended to C. H. Griffith, director of Typographic Development at Mergenthaler Linotype Company, by W. A. Dwiggins in 1935 with the statement "I want him for real work with Lino". In a note to Griffith regarding the first proofs of Fairfield™ in 1937 Dwiggins wrote, "I was sure Rudolph would come through with hot stuff if we could start him – He knows his letters to the bone, with ample historical background, and his combination of Czech + U.S.A. gives us the outside touch we want".

We can also let Ruzicka define himself by reprinting his own words; Commenting upon theories expressed about type when Fairfield was introduced, Mr. Ruzicka was simple and direct: "Type is made to be read", he reminded, "and that implies a reader. It may usefully be asked what does that all-important but often disregarded person expect? He expects nothing but to be left in optical ease while he pursues his reading – He wants no interruptions of the process of following the printed thought – There should be a kind of impersonal ease about type – type is after all, only a medium between writing and reading".

In designing Fairfield, Ruzicka pointed out, "the limitations accepted were those tending to the greatest economy of means, rather than those supposedly inherent in the machine. For this reason ligatures (which only add to the number of characters) were confined to the f combinations required by usage. The lowercase f’s, both roman and italic, fit not only all the characters, but even themselves – the twenty six leaden soldiers could fight their battles untied yet in accord". Fairfield was made to be read, not dissected, and there is no need here to point out the varied fineness of stem and serif, counter and curve, all matters of the work-bench and detail which experts will perceive and the inexpert may well be spared. Fairfield may be described as a slightly decorative contemporary type with old style characteristics.

The Linotype decision to rework and extend the Fairfield design into a series was based on a number of considerations. The first, and most important, was that the design has an appeal and a liveliness that adds to the Linotype library. In addition, Rudolph Ruzicka designed the face specifically for Linotype and Ruzicka was recommended to Linotype by Dwiggins. The development plan required us to prepare an eight weight series that incorporates the >Light< weight of the original Fairfield, released in 1940, and the more refined characteristics and weight of the reworked Fairfield Medium, released in 1947. This effort requires the creation of a hybrid that incorporated the liveliness of the original face with the proportions of the Medium and a new fitting scheme that took advantage of the current character unit system. It was then necessary to design a Black weight that would be used to interpolate the two intermediate weights. This cycle was necessary for both the roman and italic forms. In order to round out this offering we decided to include small caps, old style figures and a set of italic swash characters.

Although the above encompasses a large typeface offering we decided to take Fairfield a step further by introducing a new typographic element – the Caption font. The idea was to create a design and weight variation that could be used in place of the roman or italic design for captions. The weight had to be very close to the roman, to ensure that the level of stress, or color, of the captioned area retains a level of importance that competes with the text portion of the document. The italic or slanted form of the Caption font adds a slight textural change. The idea of a specific Caption design is not new. Matthew Carter and Mike Parker, in answer to a National Geographic design problem, created this Linotype solution back in 1976. The problem had to do with the premise that captions within an article are just as important as the text. The reasoning is based on the fact that only a small percentage of the readers actually read the article while most all readers scan the captions. Since the typical italic design could not compete against the roman design, due to its lighter color and texture, a better solution was needed. The Caption font has been designed to carry the roman color but with mixture of italic and sloped roman forms that result in an intermediate change in texture.

The designer assigned to the Fairfield effort was Alex Kaczun. Alex began his career with Linotype in 1976 training with a 35 year veteran of our Letter Design group, John Quaranta. In conjunction with J.Q., Alex had already been involved in the preparation and release of New Baskerville®, New Aster, Primer 54 and the Eldorado series. Minister, an eight weight series released in 1988, was completely designed by Alex based on 2 inch original character drawings of the roman and italic. In: http://www.linotype.com/756/rudolfruzicka.html * * * * * Rudolph Ruzicka emigrated to the US from Czechoslovakia with his parents at the age of ten. He received some drawing instruction at the Hull House in Chicago before leaving school and becoming an apprentice wood engraver. Between 1900 and 1902 he worked for several Chicago firms and attended classes at the Art Institute. He moved to New York in 1903 and worked for the American Bank Note Company and the Calkins and Holden advertising agency. During this time he also attended classes at the Art Students League. In 1910 he receive d his first major commission for System magazine. He had several exhibitions throughout his career including the “Premiere Exposition” of the Societé de la Gravure, Paris, Anderson Galleries, New York, Grolier Club and the Century Association, New York. In 1935 his work was in an exhibition sponsored by the AIGA and he was awarded the AIGA Gold Medal. He moved to Massachusetts in 1948 and then eventually settled in Vermont. At the age of ninety he created the “Dartmouth Medal” for the American Library Association.
In: http://www.drleslie.com/Contributors/ruzicka.shtml