About Ernst Reichl

Ernst Reichl, 1900–1980, book designer, typographer.

Born in Leipzig, Ernst Reichl was already a book designer when he emigrated to the United States in 1926. He held a Ph.D from the University of Leipzig, designed thousands of books and taught at New York University. He was active in the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Type Directors Club and the Typophiles. He shared office space with Ismar David for a while and they had a joint exhibition at AIGA in 1974.

John Begg introduced a tribute to the work of Ernst Reichl published by the Gallery 303, Heritage of the Graphic Arts.

Ernst Reichl has designed more than 2000 books—on numerous subjects and for many publishers.
I believe there is evidence in all of his work of a readiness to depart from tradition when the occasion seems to demand such choice.

For example, by tradition, the title of a book is on a righ-hand page. But where a pair of pages can be encompassed by one glance, as in a book, this right-hand placement can hardly be called preferred, or significant. With a half title occupying the first page, as is now customary, we open the title spread to a wide entrance into the book, and the whole area may well be considerd one graphic unit.

This concept of the title page as a double spread has been developed by Ernst Reichl in many different ways: fifteen examples are shown here.