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Jan Tschichold was a native German, son of a sign painter. He was formally trained in both traditional calligraphy and book design, which he referred to as book design. After working in traditional book design for a while he encountered some avant garde type designers and became and advocate for modern type and type layout. He joined a coalition of modern typers called "The Circle of New Advertisement Designers." This group forfronted the new typography movement which rejected older styles for their lack of legibility and boringness. Their rules included utilizing an asymmetrical balance of elements, content designed using hierarchy, intentional white-space, and only the use of sans-serifed fonts. 

As a member of this group Tschichold headed up the distribution of ideas and lecturing on their beliefs. He wrote "The New Typography" a book which outlined these new rules and styles, and is still revered today in the world of modern type. He also took charge in introducing the German population to modern type, as they had been stuck in the world of Blackwell, and was met with a lot of backlash from the Nazi party who feared he was threatening the traditions of their country their party was founded on. He ultimately had to flee to Switzerland, and eventually was arrested and removed from teaching in Germany altogether.

Ultimately Tschichold and his band of modern type advocates were some of the first to push for hierarchy in designs, veering away from the block book design that had plagued the world for too long. They also embraced getting away from the traditional Roman font families and moved towards introducing san-serifs to a larger populations. Tschichold was charged with spreading the word about modern typography, and through his writings and lectures he did just that. Ultimately his influence comes from the being the voice for modern typography for a population that did not want to change.