1950´s - 1960´s
SWISS STYLE
The Swiss Style, more formally known as the International Typographic Style. It’s dominance in many areas of graphic design covers a twenty-year period from the early 1950s to the late 1960s, and is still an important influence on designs this day. The main era of the style was after the Second World War of the 50s, so we associate the style of postwar times.In many ways the style is a further development of De Stijl (1927-1931) and Bauhaus (1919-1931).There are a range of specific visual hallmarks that characterize the style. These include the use of asymmetrical layouts built around a mathematically constructed grid, a clear and unadorned approach to the presentation of content, the use of sans-serif type, generally set flush-left and ragged-right, and a preference for photography over illustration. Sans serif fonts, which came in the pre-war era, became more common and in collaboration with photography, typography was used in a completely new way and as a new way for reaching people through, among other things, posters. The most widely used font and most used here is Akzidenz Grotesk (H.Berthold AG type foundry). This font is the precursor of the font that we today know as Helvetica. The International Typography Style has created the two most famous typefaces to be designed in the 1950’s – Helvetica and Univers. Univers was the world’s first megafamily typeface with twenty individual weights. It took three years to produce all the weights as a commercially available typeface and it was released by the French foundry Deberny & Peignot in 1957, and it became very popular with Swiss-style typographers. Helvetica was first named Neue Haas Grotesk, designed by Max Miedinger in 1957. In 1960, the face was released by German foundry D. Stempel AG, and was renamed to Helvetica – the Latin name for Switzerland. The typeface went on to become the most popular sans-serif in the world.
BACK
The fact that the style was developed after World War II, when the economy began to rise again, it focused on effective advertising. The most effective way to communicate the message was to use photography of the product along with simple typography. It is useful to place the development of the style in historical context as its early influences stretch back over several decades. In 1918, Ernst Keller, considered by many as the forerunner of the International Typographic Style, began to teach design and typography at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich. He never encouraged students to adopt a specific style, but he did argue that a design solution should always be respectful of content. This can be seen as an early version of the Modernist principle of form following function. Over the following three decades, a number of important Swiss designers would contribute to the development of the style. Theo Ballmer studied at the Dessau Bauhaus in the late 1920s under Walter Gropius and applied De Stijl principles to much of his graphic design work which utilized grids of horizontally and vertically aligned elements. Max Bill,another student at the Dessau Bauhaus from 1927 to 1929 where he was taught by Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy, and Wassily Kandinsky, developed a concept he called art concret which involved the creation of a universal style based on mathematical principles. His graphic design work featured layouts where elements were precisely distributed and space, he favored sans-serif typefaces such as Akzidenz Grotesk, and set text flush-left and ragged-right. The style’s total dominance throughout the 1950s is largely represented by the work of one central figure, Josef Müller-Brockmann, whose body of work is synonymous with the period
ARMIN HOFMAN
By the age of 27 Armin Hofmann had already completed an apprenticeship in lithography and had begun teaching typography at the Basel School of Design. His colleagues and students were integral in adding to work and theories that surrounded the Swiss International Style, which stressed a belief in an absolute and universal
style of graphic design. The style of design they created had a goal of communication above all else, practiced new techniques of photo-typesetting, photo-montage and experimental composition and heavily favored sans-serif typography. The Swiss International Style, and Hofmann, thought that one of the most efficient forms of communications was the poster and Hofmann spent much of his career designing posters, in particularly for the Basel Stadt Theater. Just as Emil Ruder and Joseph Müller-Brockmann did, Hofmann wrote a book outlining his philosophies and practices. His Graphic Design Manual was, and still is, a reference book for all graphic designers.
Josef Müller-Brockmann studied under Ernst Keller in Zurich between 1932 and 1934 before opening his own studio in 1936. He was something of a convert to the International Typographic Style as his influences variously included Constructivism, De Stijl, Suprematism, and the teachings of the Bauhaus, but Müller-Brockmann managed to filter elements of all of
JOSEF MÜLLER-BROCKMANN
these into his very particular and highly representative version of the style. He is perhaps the most well-known Swiss designer and his name is probably the most easily recognized when talking about the period. He was born and raised in Switzerland and by the age of 43 he became a teacher at the Zurich school of arts and crafts. erhaps his most decisive work was done for the Zurich Town Hall as poster advertisements for its theater productions. He published several books, including The Graphic Artist and His Problems and Grid Systems in Graphic Design. These books provide an in-depth analysis of his work practices and philosophies, and provide an excellent foundation for young graphic designers wishing to learn more about the profession. He spent most of his life working and teaching, even into the early 1990s when he toured the US and Canada speaking about his work. He died in Zurich in 1996.
