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Wim Crouwel. New Alphabet. Hilversum: Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co., 1967
“Crouwel argued that it was necessary to create new forms for new technologies. Instead of developimg the machines to meet design requirements, the designs would be adapted to the machines. His solution to this proposition was speculative, experimental and imaginative. New Alphabet was a provocation to designers intended to stimulate debate and spark new ideas rather than operate as a functioning typeface (...) New Alphabet was a single lower case typeface featuring letterforms that were plain rectangular segments drawn on a grid of five by nine units with 45 degree bevelled corners. About half of the characters were easily recognizable, but because they were all drawn to conform to Crouwel’s systematic construction method, others, such as the a, g, m and w, took on a completely alien, unfamiliar appearance that seemed to imply an unforeseeable future for the appearance of text. However, Crouwel has said that he did not invent these odd characters in order to be provocative but to create a consistent alphabet based on the grid.”
Paul McNeil. The visual history of type. London: Laurence King, 2017 (p. 377)
“In the infancy of digital typography—as lead type, set by hand in heavy lead blocks or by machines that generated lines of metal type, was giving way to text set on screens—Crouwel saw an opportunity for an interesting experiment. Early computer screens—cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors—rendered images in fairly large pixels, making traditional curvilinear letterforms difficult to reconstruct, and so Crouwel set out to redesign the alphabet using only horizontal lines. New Alphabet is, in Crouwel's words, "over-the-top and never meant to be really used," a statement on the impact of new technologies on centuries of typographic tradition. In 1988, however, Peter Saville Associates used a stylized version of the font on the cover of Substance, an album for the band Joy Division. New Alphabet was digitized for contemporary use in 1997 by Freda Sack and David Quay of The Foundry, closely based on Crouwel's original studies.”
Wim Crouwel, New Alphabet, 1967. New York: Museum of Modern Art. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/139322