4 GRIDS F O UR NOLAN
BRENNAN
WEINGART VAN TOORN CASEY LAMM/KIRCH
WOLFGANG WEIN G ART TYPOGRAPHIC ANARCHIST
An AIGA Medalist, Wolfgang Weingart’s legacy l9ooms large in the intermediary period of design between the rise and popularization of the Swiss or International Style and the idiosyncratic styles of the 1980’s and 90’s. Weingart’s formal education took place at the Basel School of Design and was heavily influenced
by disciples of the Swiss Style- Armin Hoffman and Emil Ruder. In fact, it was meetings these two desginers that would compel Weingart to enroll as an independent student at the school. Weingart’s education at the Basel School of Design formed much of the basis for Weingart’s aesthetic and it is obvious in the heavy focus on sans serif fonts as well as the underlying existence of the grid typographic system. However, it was also at the Basel School where Wolfgang began the path of heavy experimentation that would give way to his rebellious and chaotic layouts which form the body of work he has dubbed, “Weingart style.” Weingart’s love for typography is well documented over his lifetime. His entry into the world of design began as an apprentice at a formal typesetting office. After heavy experimentation with type forms during his time at the Basel School, Weingart was approached by Armin Hoffman to teach. In early layouts Weingart demonstrates a creeping level of dissatisfac-
tion with elements of the Swiss Style in relation to typesetting: “Even at this early stage in his professional development, Weingart’s innate understanding of the limitations of perpendicular compsition in lead typesetting, coupled with the strict technical and aesthetic disciple of his apprenticeship and his inherently rebellious nature, drove him inexorably to pursue a more experimental approach.” The sensitivity to type and design that Weingart had developed as a typesetting apprentice seemed to in time be bolstered by the desire to create works of spontaneity and organic carefree compositions. Far removed from the orderly works of Ruder or Muller-Brockman, but not so far gone as to lose the spirit of the Swiss style. In time, Weingart’s experimental nature and style of teaching would begin to influence the design world far flung from Switzerland or even Europe. Teaching the Basel School’s typesetting program for almost four decades, Weingart would eventually teach a number of influential design-
ers in their own right: April Greiman, Emily Murphy, Franz Werner. In time Weingart’s influence would lead to upheavals of the stranglehold of the grid leaading to a type of “typographic anarchy”, eventually fathering the “New Wave” design aesthetic. Weingart however believes that his work stil has a home in the Swiss Style, simply one grounded in its natural progression: “not only one conception of typography exists in Switzerland.”
“NOT ONLY ONE CONCEPTION OF TYPOGRAPHY EXISTS IN SWITZERLAND”
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WOLFGANG WEINGART
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WOLFGANG weingart
What’s the use of being legible, legible when
NOTHING
inspires you to take
NOTICE OF IT?
“
What’s the use of being legible, when nothing inspires you to take notice of it?”
LAMM AND KIRCH
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CONTINUOUS COOPERATIONS IN SHIFTING CONSTELLATIONS
VISUAL
WE LIKE THE OLD AND THE NEW
EXPLORE
THE OBVIOUS AND THE HIDDEN
LANGUAGE OUR IDEA OF WORKING
IS DEFINED BY
FLORIAN
“
LAMM & KIRCH IS A GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDIO FOCUSING ON THE CREATION OF BOOKS, VISUAL IDENTITIES,
GROßE FLEISCHERGASSE 19
WORKING WITH OF INSTEAD FOR SOMEBODY
2 0 0 8
JAKOB
AND EXHIBITIONS IN THE BROAD FIELD OF THE CULTURAL SECTOR. WE MOSTLY DO PRINTED MATTER.
HTTP://LAMM-KIRCH.COM
04109 LEIPZIG, D – GERMANY
Our approach is defined by continuous cooperations in shifting constellations. We like the old and the new, the obvious and the hidden. The studio functions as a research facility to explore various ways of visual language. Our idea of working is defined by working “with” instead of “for” somebody.”
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JACQUELINE CASEY
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11 ICasey was born in 1927 in Quincy, Massachusetts She studied for a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree In fashion design and illustration at the Massachusetts College of Art, graduating in 1949. After graduating, she had a number of jobs in interior design and advertising I just think of the problem at hand and I solve it in what I consider an apprpriate way
Caseys work is held in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern art in New York and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum The MIT Museum mounted an exhibition of Casey’s graphic work in 1992, and again in 2012. I just think of the problem at hand and I solve it in what I consider an apprpriate way
“
I just think of the problem at hand, and I solve it in what I consider an appropriate way... There is emotion, there must be.”
JAN VAN TOORN
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Van Toorn
stood in counterposition to Wim Crouwel, anoth-
Information cannot be neutral Information cannot be neutral
A design should show where it came from
Mart. Spruijt
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01.01.1970 Wim Crouwel 07.16.2008 Rick Poynor 03.03.1980 Noam Chomsky 11.30.1994 Guy Debord 11.04.1995 Gilles Deleuze 11.11.1929 Hans Enzensberger 09.14.1956 Bertolt Brecht 12.03.1930 Jean-Luc Godard 07.18.1929 Jurgen Habermas 03.14.1883 Karl Marx 12.06.1984 Viktor Shklovsky Visual Reporting, Anti-house Style, Critical Practice, Deschooling Design, Styles of Representation Dutch Art + Architecture Today
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1853 --1890 Vincent van Gogh
The Designer should reveal who’s talking, and Which Interests guide the Message.
From the 1970’s on, his priority has been to make the viewer of his design aware of the mechanics of his manipulation. (JvT used his term “dialogic ” Tiel 1932 Amsterdam
“
1872 --1944 Piet Mondrian 1450 --1516 Hieronymus Bosch 1525 --1569 Pieter Bruegel the 1898 --1972 M.C. Escher 1885 --1977 Piet Zwarte
1930 -- 1441 Jan van Eyck 1917 De Stijl
Active also as a theoristts, he observed: ‘In one way or the other, the public must remain in a position where they can measure the motives of the producer and mediator that lie behind the product, against their own experience of the world.’ JvT favors expressions which stimulates, the reader
Information cannot be neutral. A design should show where it came from. The designer should reveal who’s talking, and which interests guide the message.”
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NOLAN BRENNAN 2016