spiral #1 december 2014
A different newspaper. Unconventional. A distinct publication. That’s how we can characterize the Spiral, a publication that intend to focus on the Swiss Graphic Design. In its first edition “What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design?” this newspaper aims to understand in which context arises the Swiss Design, how it is spread by the time it is assumed as a new graphic design expression, and also what influences and references remain until the present day. The main objective is to realize what was the Swiss Design, and the reason why it remains as a timeless reference. The publication is covered by a dust-cover, which functions as a poster that contains the images that are used to illustrate the content addressed in the publication. On the back of the poster is the diagram that contains some of the works realized by three precursors who are mentioned in the publication. The cover of the publication presents a more minimalist style in order to be a simplification of the dust-cover. The publication presents different graphic approaches, with variations of the same elements, in order to distinguish what is the central question of the publication, from what underlies it.
spiral
l
What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design
The Inter National Typo Graphic Style
In this paradigm, the designer his or her role not as an artist but as an objective conduit for spreading important information between components of society.
What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design
During the 1950’s, a design style emerged from Switzerland and Germany that has been called Swiss design or, more appropriately, the International Typographic Style. The objective clarity of this design movement won converts throughout the world. It remaind a major force for over two decades, and its influence continues into 1990’s. Detractors of the Internacional Typographic Style complain that it is based on formula and results in a sameness of solution; advocates argue that the style’s purity of means and legibility of communication enable the designer to achieve a timeless perfection of form, and they point to the inventive range of solutions by leading practitioners as evidence that neither formula nor sameness is indigenous to the style, except in the hands of lesser talents. The visual characteristics of this internacional style include: a visual unity of design achieved by asymmetrical organization of the design elements on a mathematically constructed grid; 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; and the use of sans serif typography set in a flush-left and ragged-right margin configuration. The initiators of this style believe that sans serif typography expresses the spirit of a progressive age, and that mathematical grids are the most legible and harmonious means for structuring information. More importante than the visual appearance of this work is the attitude that its early pioneers developed toward their profession. These trailblazers defined design as a socially useful and important activity, rejecting personal expression and eccentric solutions in favor of a more universal and scientific approach to design problema solving.
l
spiral
spiral
l
What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design
Emil Ruder
The further development of the International Typographic Style occurred in two cities, Basel and Zurich. In 1947, Ruder joined the faulty of the Basel School of Design as a typography teacher, and continued in this position for the rest of his life. Ruder called upon his students to strike a correct balance between form and function and taught that type loses its purpose when it loses its communicative meaning. Legibility and readability therefore became dominant concerns. His classroom projects developed sensitivity to negative or unprinted spaces, including the spaces between and inside letterforms. Ruder advocated systematic overall design and the use of a complex grid structure to bring all elements - typography, illustration, diagrams, and charts - into harmony with each other while allowing for design variety.
He combined clean, efficient presentation of information with a dynamic visual quality, using straightforward photography with drama and impact.
In a country with such outstanding design schools as Switzerland, Siegfried Odermatt is a rarity: the self-educated graphic designer. Originally he planned to become a photographer, but after working in photographic studios for several years, Odermatt turned to design and typography. After a period of employment in several advertising agencies, Odermatt opened his own studio in 1950. He combined clean, efficient presentation of information with a dynamic visual quality, using straightforward photography with drama and impact. Odermatt expresses originality through the idea, not through visual style - graphic design is always seen as an instrument of communication, and the visual tools used are typography, photography, and constructive drawing. Much of Odermatt’s work is purely typographic, and he is willing to take great liberties with the traditions of typography. Unlike many Swiss designers, Odermatt employs an element of the playful and the uninhibited in his work. The new graphic developed in Switzerland helped fulfill these needs, and the fundamental concepts and approach developed in Switzerland began to spread throughout the world.
What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design
l
spiral
The use of a complex grid structure to bring all elements - typography, illustration, diagrams, and charts - into harmony with each other while allowing for design variety.
Armin Hofmann
Siegfried Odermatt
Problems of unifying type and image were addressed. In 1947, Armin Hofmann began teaching graphic graphic design at the Basel School of Design, after completing his education in Zurich. Hofmann applied a deep sense of aesthetic values and understanding of form to both teaching and designing. As a time passed, Hofmann evolved a design philosophy bases on the elemental graphic-form language of point, line, and plane, replacing traditional pictorial ideas with a modernist aesthetic. In his work and in his teaching, Hofmann seeks a dynamic harmony where all the parts of a design are unified. He sees the relationship of contrasting elements as the means to breathe life into visual design. These contrasts include light to dark, curved lines to straight lines, form to counter form, and dynamic to static, with resolution achieved when the creator brings the total into an absolute harmony.
spiral
l
What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design
Of all the questions that interested the Swiss Modernist designers, once was most persistent: "Does Art have a place only in painting, or can there be art in the layout of a newspaper, in an advertisement, or a poster?" This was how it was formulated by Karl Gerstner in 1961. He answered with a unique demonstration. Taking literally the old saying, "Billboards are the art gallery of the street", hWe invited six Concrete artists to take the part. He won the backing of printers, and the General Poster Company allotted five hundred poster sites in Zurich where the work of one artist was pasted up for a fortnight, to be followed by the five others, in turn. Gerstner was using a commercial medium for art. Nowhere were the tensions between the "illustrational" and the "anonymous" designers - and between art and commercial art - more evident than in Switzerland. When the Alliance Graphique International (AGI), a self-elected, elite group of international designers, met in Austria in 1963 there had been, according to Hans Neuburg, a friendly confrontation between those representing “the free, classic graphic artist with his inclination to drawing and painting and his Constructivist, functionally minded and intellectual counterpart. The so-called cold Swiss graphic art - as produced for instance in Zurich and Basel came in for some particularly vigorous attacks. In the summer of 1964 the International Council of Graphic Design Associations chose Zurich as the venue for its first conference. By taking “Graphic” Designer or Commercial Artist” as its theme, the conference organizers prolonged the dispute. Hans Neuburg took the opportunity to defend the Constructive position. By contrast to the commercial artist there has grown up a new conception of graphic art based on different designing principles. In this new conception Constructive elements - for positive and practical reasons, as we shall see - have gained the upper hand, and artistic intuition and fancy have given place to a more methodical and mathematical design approach. Many works by leading graphic designers have proved, however, that an approach employing structural principles may very well yield practical results, in other words
Constructive elements - for positive
and practical reasons, as we shall see -
have gained the upper hand, and artistic intuition and fancy have given place to a more methodical and mathematical design approach.
Does Art a place o painting, there be a the layou newspap advertise a poster?
have only in or can art in ut of a per, in an ement, or ?
What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design
Bill was convinced that “graphic” design is a formal category which easily succumbs to the temptation to mix practical demands with aesthetic programmes”.
This was not ‘the real business of graphic art. Its real business is that of visual communication.
that advertisements, booklets and posters designed in accordance with systematic Constructive laws take on life, atmosphere and advertising force. Neuburg provides little substantial argument to defend the Constructive designers. Nor was he supported at the conference by Max Bill, who spoke on “Art and Graphic Design - Graphic Design and Art. Asked why he chose to address the conference, Bill said that he was “interested in a communication medium that represents both simple and complicated processes in such a way that everyone at once traps their meaning”. Bill was convinced that “graphic” design is a formal category which easily succumbs to the temptation to mix practical demands with aesthetic programmes”. This was not ‘the real business of graphic art’. Its real business is that of visual communication - that is, to be more precise, the communication of a piece of information in the best possible and most appropriate way. When this demand has been fulfilled without restriction, an area remains where aesthetic judgment can play its part in the arrangement of the graphic elements. And Bill was in favour of variety. It would be as as pointless to force graphic design to fit one pattern of thought as it would be to free it from the strict principles of visual organization. In graphic design one ought to be able to find a happy medium between Modernist aestheticism and the usual visual noise. Many years earlier Bill had described works of Concrete art as ‘laboratory works for the fulfillment of pure rational design. The limitations which Concrete artists imposed on themselves, the exclusion of the familiar ‘artistic’ gesture, of the accident, had created an aesthetic climate of graphic restraint. Not only did their systems of mathematical relationships coincide with the disciplines of typography - the restriction to given sizes of type - but also the perfection of ‘sachlich’ photography matched the artist’s rejection of both natural appearances and painterly brushwork.
l
spiral
spiral
l
What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design
Timeless Influence Keep 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 typography.
Also known as International Style, the Swiss Style does not simply describe a style of graphic design made in Switzerland. It became famous through the art of very talented Swiss graphic designers, but it emerged in Russia, Germany and Netherlands in the 1920’s. This style in art, architecture and culture became an ‘international’ style after 1950’s and it was produced by artists all around the globe. Despite that, people still refer to it as the Swiss Style or the Swiss Legacy. This progressive, radical movement in graphic design is not concerned with the graphic design in Switzerland, but rather with the new style that had been proposed, attacked and defended in the 1920s in Switzerland. Keep 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 typography laid out a foundation for a new movement that has been exported worldwide in 1960s to become an international style. Emerging from the modernist and constructivist ideals, the Swiss Style can be defined as an authentic pursue for simplicity – the beauty in the underlines of a purpose, not beauty as a purpose in itself. The principle “form follows function” became a battle-cry of Modernist architects after the 1930s. As a consequence of this principle, most of the Swiss Style craft is devoted to the minimal elements of style such as typography and content layout rather than on textures and illustrations. As a result of that, Swiss Style artists tend to put their artistic efforts in that the content they are conveying delivers its intended message in a clear, unobtrusive fashion. One can make the point that they were thinking, in a broader sense, about usability long before the web even existed. Even a quick study of classic Swiss style works reveals a strong attention of graphic designers to uniform design elements and strong geometric shapes.
Graphic artists have experimented with abstract geometric patterns, uncommon color combinations, text manipulations and striking abstract visuals that were used to clearly convey their purpose in a very remarkable way. Whitespace can never be underrated. It’s a very important element for both visual impact and readability. It feels quite inviting when a web page is laid out in such a fashion that the organization of the page (and the site) is clearly conveyed in a split of a second. It’s also good for business, since people use interfaces that they understand and tend reject the ones they don’t. wiss style is all about using less, so instead of adding more elements to work with, they prefer to remove as much as possible. This is a great example of the ‘less is more’ principle and of the ‘the content is the interface’ wisdom.
What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design
A grid system is a rigid framework that is supposed to help graphic designers in the meaningful, logical and consistent organization of information on a page. Rudimentary versions of grid systems existed since the medieval times, but a group of graphic designers, mostly inspired in ideas from typographical literature started building a more rigid and coherent system for page layout. The core of these ideas were first presented in the book Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann which helped to spread the knowledge about the grids thorough the world. Nowadays grid systems are an established tool that is often used by print and web designers to create well-structured, balanced designs. When we learn from the Swiss Style literature, it’s very easy to embrace the grid system as the interface’ wisdom. A grid system is a rigid framework that is supposed to help graphic designers in the meaningful, logical and consistent organization of information on a page. Rudimentary versions of grid systems existed since the medieval times, but a group of graphic designers, mostly inspired in ideas from typographical literature started building a more rigid and coherent system for page layout.However, upon a further examination we can see that grids are more than just the art of placing elements; there’s a subtle layer of semantic organization of data which, despite not being inherent to the use of the grid, is a big part of the Swiss Style’s essence. There is also a direct influence from the constructivism, elementary and minimalism movements in the Swiss Style artists. Minimal design is about removing the unnecessary and emphasizing the necessary; it’s about a functional and simple use of fundamental elements of style for the purpose of the artists’ objectives. This principle is one of the core reasons why Swiss Style graphic designers pay so much attention to type. Typeface is one of the most fundamental elements of visual communication that is able to deliver the message in a very precise, clear way. According to the Swiss movement, adding more elements without fully exploring the potential of the fundamental ones can be considered a ‘waste’. As these basic elements, like typography, have so much aesthetic potential, there’s rarely a need for other visual graphics elements. In many aspects, these ideas touch on the core proposals of the De Stijl movement. The neoplasticism, as proposed by De Stijl artists, is about elementarism and geometry not only as a form of exploring the potential of the fundamental elements, but as a pursuit of beauty and harmony, hinting on a more mystical belief in ‘ideal’ geometric forms.
l
When Swiss Style graphic designers advocate the use of sans-serif typefaces, they weren’t paying attention to the historical legacy and experimented with something new.
It’s very common to spot the use of font-size contrast in the works of the Swiss Style. Different font-sizes not only generate visual impact, but also provide readers with a hint about the hierarchy of the presented data. Huge words are the entry points, the top-level elements in the content’s information architecture and page’s hierarchy. This is a very efficient way of guiding the reader’s eyes through the page, thus working as an interface to the content. One of the strongest characteristics of the Swiss style typography is the use of sans-serif typefaces such as Akzidenz Grotesk and Neue Haas Grotesk (a.k.a Helvetica). With this philosophy, graphic designers were aiming at clarity, simplicity and universality. The Swiss Style advocates that the typeface does not have to be expressive in itself, it must be an unobtrusive instrument of expression. This is by no means a rigid rule. When Swiss Style graphic designers advocate the use of sans-serif typefaces, they weren’t paying attention to the historical legacy and experimented with something new. Despite not being particularly famous for it, one important part of the Swiss Style is its remarkable use of photography. Following the modernist ideas in which photography was a much better tool to portray reality than drawings and illustrations.
spiral
Index
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[1] Armin Hofmann, Stadttheater Basel 1966 [2] Emil Ruder, die gute Form, 1958 [3] Siegfried Odermatt Swiss Exhibition 1998 [4] Armin Hofmann, Stadttheater Basel,1960 [5] Armin Hofmann, 1967 [6] Emil Ruder, 1970 [7] Siegfried Odermatt, 1967 [8] Siegdrief Odermatt, 1988 [9] Armin Hofmann, 1968 [10] Emil Ruder, 1965 [11] Armin Hofmann, 1959 [12] Armin Hofmann, 1986 [13] Karl Gerstner,1966 [14] Josef Muller Brockmann, 1957 [15] Herbert Matter, 1934
spiral
Page four text by Philip Meggs, in A History of graphic design (1983); Page eigth text by Richard Hollis, in Swiss Graphic Design 2006 Page ten text by Diogo Terror, in Lessons From Swiss Stye Graphic Design (2009)
Work done by Ana Marta Pires and Beatriz Pereira
What’s left from Swiss Graphic Design?