The design below bas been constructed entirely of typographic material, no photo-engravings or drawings being employed. Working with an “alphabet” of about thirty geometric forms, in ten sizes from one-sixteenth to two inches, it is possible to produce an infinite number of designs varying in size, color and character. These are all stock shapes, readily available. Because of the economy of this method, the field of personal design, such as signets, stationery, book-plates and greeting cards becomes much richer and allows the production of printing usually too expensive for the individual. It has been applied also to books, brochures, announcements and large abstract prints. The design below being only in the single color docs not suggest the results of overprinting in other hues.

My first experiments were more of a makeshift means of reproducing abstract designs inexpensively, until I realized that this method bad advantages entirely of its own. The precision and delicacy of form possible could be achieved by no other technique.

Further study convinces me that in this method of the standardized modular part lies the solution to a more basic approach to architecture. Speaking recently in Los Angeles, Alvar Aalto concluded his lecture with the same thought. By using the machine-produced, mathematically related “cell,” one had the advantage of precision and economy as well as the free choice and flexibility usually only obtained by the personal design. Perhaps then our architecture would truly live, and the discrepancy between traditional structural method and the forms we seek, would vanish. The problem is one almost entirely of design, the technical means being readily found. Such a technique could produce either a barren and unimaginative result, or the fruitful flowering of an architecture of unparalleled beauty. It is a question of vision.