AT THE STUDIO Art without borders: Roger Pfund

ART WITHOUT BORDERS: ROGER PFUND

From art and architecture through to graphics and security design ― the portfolio of multiple award winning graphic designer Roger Pfund is as colourful as it is diverse. The high points of his 50 year career are the 1984 reserve series of the Swiss banknotes and that little red booklet: the Swiss passport.

A courageous Swiss shot: vertical layout for the EURO notes. Roger Pfund’s design wins the competition, but sadly the series never goes to print.

Not many artists can claim that their work is identity-forming, especially not for the entire population of a country. Roger Pfund can ― any Swiss national who has had a new passport issued since 2003 carries Pfund design with them when they travel abroad. Most citizens may be more interested in the stamps they have collected from around the globe over the course of the years, but thanks to the richly detailed composition, many a Swiss citizen could learn a new thing or two about their home country. Each of the 26 Swiss cantons has its own page, showing the crest and a chosen landmark. Another interesting detail: the cantons appear in the same order in which they joined the Swiss Confederation. Bern’s page features the medieval Zytglogge tower, the Ticino chose the castles of Bellinzona, Lucerne the Kapellbrücke and Geneva, where Pfund lives, is represented by the UN headquarters. Compared to other passports, Pfund’s creation is unusually colourful, both inside and out. “Richness of colour has always been a key aspect in my work,” Pfund tells me and smiles as he points at the passport cover. “Of course our passport has traditionally been red for decades. But that’s not all. If you hold it under a UV light, it glows blue and the embossed, previously barely visible crosses shimmer yellow.”

Roger Pfund’s graphic design talent became evident in the early years of his career. In 1971, aged just 28, he was invited to take part in the prestigious competition for the sixth issue of the Swiss banknotes ― and promptly won first prize. The fact that the bank eventually chose the designs by Zurich based graphic artists Ernst and Ursula Hiestand, and his version was “only” used for the reserve series, doesn’t trouble him one bit. The reserve series was intended as

a backup, to be used in the event that the regular series had to be replaced due to forgery. But his main legacy is of a different nature. Working together with experts from the worldfamous banknote printer Orell Füssli and the computer scientist Joseph Huber he developed a computer program that heralded a new era in security printing.

The work on the six banknotes took 15 years. Computers were still light years away from today’s high-performance machines, but it wasn’t just the programming of the design that took up time. The iconography and the associated research into the subjects and people that were to be printed onto the notes were equally time consuming. But as the inventor of thematic bank note design, Roger Pfund felt it was a unique opportunity to highlight Switzerland’s identity, history and culture on the notes, thereby making them a calling card for the country. The studio of the multi award-winning graphic designer is situated in the basement of a former factory, at the heart of Geneva’s trendy Quartier des Bains. Colourful paintings are neatly stacked along the wall, long shelves hold meticulously labelled boxes with posters, and even inside the cupboards, where he keeps his sketches and blueprints, everything is in fastidious order. On the table in front of him are three black books, each five centimetres thick. They’re catalogues that hold the lifework of this tireless creator between their covers.

Over a bottle of white wine and a packet of Gitanes bleu, epicurean Roger Pfund gets chatting. In the course of his 50 year career he has designed cheques, created stage sets, drafted shares and designed billboards for the Geneva Opera House, as well as posters to raise funds for good causes. He has also organised multimedia events and created books, paintings and objects ranging from art through to commercial items. It seems Roger Pfund has a sheer limitless wealth of creativity into which he can dip. Over the years, he has also come up with all kinds of “crazy stuff”, as he calls it. Achess set with aluminium figures of Voltaire and Rousseau, for example, and a foldable designer food warmer, where the heat is transmitted via a copper disc.

Painting is the thread that holds together his diverse work. He describes it as the “twin of graphic design”. In recent years, his work has been shown in international museums from Bogota to Wiesbaden. He achieved his biggest coup in 2008, when the Today Art Museum in Beijing staged a comprehensive retrospective across four floors. This was an honour not visited on anyone else before. Even now, at 75, he paints every day ― a leisurely retirement is not an option for Roger Pfund. (rea) ― ROGERPFUND.CH

The book: 500 Years of Printing. Orell Füssli — Tradition and Innovation since 1519

Orell Füssli has been active in printing and publishing since 1519. The world-famous Zurich company, which also prints the Swiss passport and bank notes for countries around the globe, is publishing

a richly illustrated book to celebrate the anniversary. 500 Years of Printing. Orell Füssli — Tradition and Innovation since 1519; ISBN 978-3-280-05655-4 The book is also being published in English. ofv.ch