Tag: international typographic style

Research on Late Modernism

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Week 9

Consider what we have discussed regarding Late Modernism in the USA and The Swiss International Style. Do additional research on the Swiss International Style – it may be a good idea to study some of the known designers of this style and period. As a guide, visit designishistory.com, which gives a brief outline of specific designers and styles – take note that here the Swiss International Style is listed under 1940, which is not incorrect as the style was developed in the late 40s, but flourished in the 50s. Also use additional reference sources of your own and do a write-up of the following:

  • Research on the Swiss International Style
    After you have done research on the style, give a description of your own. How would you define the style? Do a write-up of about 350 words and discuss the characteristics of the style, the typefaces that were prominent and the philosophy behind it.

The International Typographic Style emerged from Switzerland during the 1950s, also known as Swiss Style. It is one of the longest artistic movements in the twentieth century as it remained a major force for more than twenty years. Although it originated in Europe, the movement won converts throughout the world.

The visual characteristics of this international style are: a visual unity of design achieved by the asymmetrical organization of the elements of the design on a mathematically drawn grid; the use of sans-serif type; typography set in a flush-left and ragged-right margin configuration; objective photography and copy that present visual and verbal information in a clear and factual manner, free from the exaggerated claims of much propaganda and commercial advertising.

Detractors of this movement complain it is based on a formula and the results are similar to one another. Advocates argue that the purity of means and legibility of communication enable the designer to achieve a timeless perfection of form.

The early pioneers of the movement defined design as a socially useful and important activity. Personal expression and eccentric solutions are rejected in favour of a more universal and scientific approach to design problem-solving. For them, clarity and order is the ideal. Sans-serif typography is preferred as they believe it expresses the spirit of the present age, and that mathematical grids are the most legible and harmonious means for structuring information.

In the 1950s, Swiss Style designers created several new sans-serif typestyles inspired by the nineteenth-century Akzidenz Grotesque fonts, rejecting the geometric sans-serif styles, mathematically constructed during the 1920s and 1930s. The Swiss designer Adrian Frutiger created a visually programmed family of twenty-one sans-serif fonts named Univers. Because all twenty-one fonts have the same x-height and ascender and descender lengths, they form a uniform whole that can be used together with complete harmony. In 1961, Edouard Hoffman and Max Miedinger designed a new font called New Haas Grotesque, a refined and upgraded version of Akzidenz Grotesque. This new font, also known as Helvetica, has well-defined forms and an excellent rhythm of positive and negative shapes. Although the Helvetica family lacks the cohesiveness of Univers, it is one of the most popular typefaces of the mid-twentieth century.

  • Influences on Swiss International Style
    Do a write-up of about 350 words on what you think the main influences were on the Swiss International Style. In other words, what motivated designers to create and follow this style? It may be useful to study specific designers, such as Josef Müller-Brockmann and Armin Hofmann, pay attention to what they themselves (or other designers amongst their peers) have said about the philosophy of the style.

As with most graphic designers that can be classified as part of the Swiss International Style, Joseph Müller-Brockmann was influenced by the ideas of several different design and art movements, including Constructivism, De Stijl, Suprematism and the Bauhaus. 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. Müller-Brockmann, “sought an absolute and universal form of graphic expression through objective and impersonal presentation, communicating to the audience without the interference of the designer’s subjective feelings or propagandist techniques of persuasion”.

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 type of design they created had a goal of communication above all else, practised new techniques of photo-typesetting, photo-montage and experimental composition and heavily favoured sans-serif typography. The Swiss International Style, and Hofmann, thought that one of the most efficient forms of communication was the poster. Hofmann spent much of his career designing posters, particularly for the Basel Stadt Theater. 

Swiss designers Thèo Ballmer and Max Bill studied at the Bauhaus before moving back to Switzerland. Thèo Ballmer formulated a Manifesto of Art Concret in 1930, which called for a universal art of absolute clarity. The visually controlled arithmetical construction of the painting would be created entirely from pure visual elements, that is, planes and colours. Max Bill played a major role in evolving a Constructivist ideal in graphic design. Mathematical proportion, geometric spatial division, and the use of Akzidenz Grotesque type are aspects of his work in the 1930s. In 1949, he wrote that “I am of the opinion that it is possible to develop an art largely on the basis of mathematical thinking”.

  • Analysis of the Swiss International Style
    Read up on the different schools within the Swiss International Style: The Zurich School of Arts and Krafts and The Basel School of Design and do a write-up of the similarities between them and the differences in their approaches. This write-up should be your own conclusions, based on examples of work and stated facts and should be approximately 350 words long.

The profession of graphic designer did not exist at the beginning of the 20th century. Posters, magazines and other publications were designed by artists, who used such commissioned work to pay the bills. The first courses in applied graphic design were taught at vocational arts and crafts schools in Basel and Zurich from 1915.

The Zurich School of Arts and Crafts, co-founded by Ernst Keller, contributed to the development of modern graphic design. Keller was also the school’s head of the graphic design programme from 1920 to 1956. A number of students from the Zurich school gained international renown for typeface design and for developing unique styles of their own. One of these students, Josef Müller-Brockmann, replaced Keller as a professor.

Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann formed The Basel School of Design and helped establish the Swiss Design style. The school brought forth a great diversity of design styles. Hofmann way of teaching was often regarded as unorthodox in his ways. Much of his work focused on elements of graphic form while remaining simple and objective.

Both Armin Hofmann and Josef Müller-Brockmann were Ernst Keller’s students, and their compositions are influenced by his teachings. They had a similar approach to design, and focused on the use of grid systems and sans-serif typography. This was reflected in the similarities in the courses taught both in Zurich and Basel. The work of the designers from both schools was characterised by a design language reduced to its essentials, the use of photography and graphic symbols, sparing utilisation of colour, sans serif fonts and asymmetrical layouts. 

But there are a few differences. Whereas the Zurich-based designers championed the use of a layout grid and the Helvetica typeface developed by Max Miedinger, Basel-based designers used layout grids more selectively and favoured Adrian Frutiger’s Univers typeface.

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