"The essence of the New Typography is clarity. This puts it into deliberate opposition to the old typography whose aim was “beauty” and whose clarity did not attain the high level we require today. This utmost clarity is necessary today because of the manifold claims for our attention made by the extraordinary amount of print, which demands the greatest economy of expression."

(Jan Tschichold, 1928)
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/courses/liu/english25/materials/graphic-design/tschichold.html