Rosmarie Tissi

“WE CAN TALK ABOUT MAKING A DIFFERENCE,

D E WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE, I S OR WE CAN DO BOTH”.

G N MATTERS With Debbie Millman

Interview with Rosmarie Tissi Feature on Swiss Style design

Issue 7 - JULY 2017 - RRP $5.95 Radiotopia LTD - Brisbane, AUS.

t a r n h u o ? i o t W n i y g n s i i idef es d f o

What is the necessary condition to practice design?

What is the purpose of design?

The purpose of graphic design is to deliver information or a message in a package as original and interesting as possible.

What are the qualities of good design?

It may well carry the designers personal, distinctive mark. This however should never be an end in itself.

Design Matters Magazine

Rosmarie Tissi

I have always reduced my design to the essential, employed only few elements and played with the proportions and the empty spaces. I believe that this helped to develop a timeless design aesthetics, owned also to the fact that I hardly ever followed any popular trend.

What are the key features of your design?

In the past, you had to be a good draftsman in order to become a designer. This skill helps to get a better feeling for forms and proportions, but this ability does not seem to matter anymore, as it became obvious in some short graphic design workshops I gave: The students were not able to draw characters. They rely too much on the computer and this tool induces them to employ a maximum of elements and typefaces.

D c o a

What are the differences between art and design?

Could design be art?

Design has to serve a purpose and therefore it is not art. There are exceptions, for example in case of illustrations or when given free hand in order to convey an atmosphere.

To whom is design addressed?

Is it for the masses?

Everybody should be able to afford good design.

Should the products of design be cheap or expensive?

It depends on the material they are made of and the production costs. I don’t think it is right that products could be expensive just to emphasize their exclusivity.

What job did you want to do in the future as a child?

When I was little, I wanted to become a gardener, mainly because I loved to be outdoors. Later on I was fascinated by chemistry as I believed that in this profession I would be able to make inventions.

Now I make inventions on paper.

Design is a combination of functionality and aesthetics.

Rosmarie Tissi

Design Matters Magazine

c i h p a r g f o e s o p r u r p e v e i l h T gn is to de e g a s s e i m des mation or a riginal and inforpackage as o sible. in a esting as pos inter

Rosmarie Tissi worked for decades in the International Swiss Style and co-founded a studio with her mentor Siegfried Odermatt in 1968. Together by totally re-imagining how elements exist on a page, for a purpose, added much to the history of typographic design.

Her incredible archive of design is full of bright colours which playfully define and divide space and bold typography that says what it says, while also suggesting a little bit more meaning.

Design Matters Magazine

Rosmarie Tissi