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50’s Typographic trends of 1950s graphic design
Swiss Grid
The most prominent development from 1950s design was the development of the Swiss International Style, based off the Swiss Grid. The movement was based off attention to detail, precision, craft skills, system of education and technical training, a high standard of printing as well as a clear refined and inventive lettering and typoraphy. Adhering to modernism, the Swiss style adn the Swiss grid allowed typographic order and heirachy to be established. This was deveoped as an outcry to the state of society in the 1950s, which was post-war and deeply rooted in modernism. Society was looking for order in the chaos. Graphic design of this time showed the peoples real desire and need to rebuild and reconstruct. In the chaos, designers felt they had a social responsibility to bring this order that society desired. The grid is somewhat cold and emotionless, with its main purpose being to deliver information effectively and orderly. It has a structured layout, unjustified type and uses sans serif typefaces. The information presented was clear and facutal, assymetrically aligned on a mathematically constructed grid. This is Swiss.
Why did they adapt Helvetica? Sans Serif fonts grew in popularity throughout the 1950s, and with this came the development of Helvetica. Designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, it is a neo-grotesque typeface that is nuetral and with great clarity, can be widely used and has no intrinsic value. Developed at the Haas Type Foundary in Switzerland, Helvetica was made to compete against the successful typface Akzidenz Grotesk in the Swiss market. Helvetica was created and so embraced during the 1950s as the world was desperately trying to find order in the chaos of the past 25 years.
Order
in the
CHAOS
HOFMANN
ARMIN