Blog Post#11

Swiss Design + the International Typographic Style
More than just grids?

Good Swiss design is characterized by having a visual unity achieved by asymmetric organization, the use of objective photography. Sans serif type, flush left, ragged right, mathematical grids, and its "socially useful".

Swiss design is synonymous with the international style, and more important than the appearance is the attitude, whats behind it. They have the basic belief that design is socially useful. You cant make somebody believe in the morality of design, fundamentally you either believe or not that design will make the world better.

Being a designer is not about what you do for a living, but your way of life. Swiss design concentrated on this, on the influence of design in society.

Max Vill and Theo Balmer are students of the bauhaus, and are the two who provide a link for us between the Bauhaus and post war swiss design.

They begin to take in all these modernist ideas. For the, the grid is not just an idea behind a design, but rather it becomes the design in itself. The reason to have a grid structure was made more as guidelines than rules, it was created as a structure that if necessary could be broken, but when used would help bring the design together.

semiotics is a common application in swiss design. What things mean in relationship to other things.

Armand Hoffman " If you design the negative space, the rest will work"
The negative space in swiss design is an active component.
An example of Herman Millers poster is shown, where he uses negative space first to design his posters.

Another known artist of swiss design is Joseph Muller.
"You dont have to be able to read the poster to decode what's going on" the symbols and images give out the message without the need of verbal explanation.

Swiss modernism vs New York modernism:
Aiven Chermayeff
Post world war II is happening, we have the influence of european ideas which start filtering into the American design.
Paul Rand has a characteristic in his work as well as Aiven Chermayeff- the whole punches.
Thy both work with the idea of simplifying design, to the extent where symbols express more than the works in the work itself.


"Its all art or could be" who defines it? or who chooses whether or not it is. I feel this is a constant battle we fight today, or at least I do with how most people just comply to the rules of what previous designers have done

"you dont have an idea when you have nothing to work with"
David Carson: Dont confuse legibility with communication" just because you can read something it doesn't mean you're communicating the proper message.
The trick is to be articulate and show what you mean with the way you present the work.