In July 1933, the typographer and book designer Jan Tschichold – after release and detention – succeeded in fleeing to Switzerland. With a partial work permit, he taught at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule in Basel and took on design jobs from publishers. From 1941 he obtained full-time employment as a bookbinder for the Basel publishing house Birkhäuser. There he was in charge of the design of the Birkhäuser Klassiker series. Tschichold also published technical books and articles in Switzerland. In 1945, Birkhäuser released his book Schatzkammer der Schreibkunst, which he had designed and published himself.

Tschichold had been a pioneer of the “new typography” since the 1920s, a design school that advocated a functional, simple design (e.g. sans serif fonts, asymmetrical arrangement of design elements). In exile, the typographer distanced himself from this position and returned to more traditional, historically rooted forms.

In Schatzkammer der Schreibkunst, Tschichold presented a selection of calligraphy from the 16th to the 19th centuries. It was intended to serve as a resource for the study of historical forms of writing for would-be type designers. Learning these typefaces requires “patience and perseverance”, wrote Tschichold in his foreword. However, he also added that it harmonises the whole person like almost no other activity and he would therefore recommend it to anyone. (Tschichold, Schatzkammer der Schreibkunst, 1945)