01. Yasmine T. Sedky

02. Exhibition poster for the Basel Kunstkredit, Wolfgang Weingart, 1977.

03.

04. Designers in the 1970’s looked to branch out in the field of typography and more risks were being taken. The lines were crossed from legibility to readability, and interpretation of the work itself became very important. I believe the target audience for this piece were young students who were leading a revolutionary movement that swept Europe in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and also post modernists. That revolutionary movement rejected old norms and traditions and called for reform, whereas post modernists also rejected norms and traditions. This movement encouraged new thinking. I believe Weingart’s poster reflects these turbulent times & sent a clear message to young people and post modernists encouraging them to break away from the norm, and encouraging students to make mistakes, learning in the process. Weingart’s poster was a great inspiration for those two movements at that time, because he revamped the Swiss designs, using it only as a starting point then further dissecting and manipulating its design, structure, and typography itself, along with juxtaposing image with text, as opposed to earlier works solely based on text. Interpretation was now taken into ac-count, and boundaries of what type was were broken. Not only will learning designers & young people view this piece as a stepping stone for experimental typography that we have today, but anyone who enjoys conceptual art, or any art form that one interprets will find this work fascinating. Swiss design emerged from traditions of the Bauhaus of the 1920’s and 30’s , and with this strong influence came a body of art full of interpretation, experimentation, and integration of type, image, and layers of information. 1

05. From first sight, this poster the viewer is pulled into the piece by the strong diagonals, signifying movement and action, just like the student & post modern movement reflected action away from static established norms and geared towards change and new inspiration. The architecture provides perspective and a sense of excitement and motion, even though the building is static. The overlapping and juxtaposing of image and typography grabs the viewer’s attention making a figure ground relationship apparent, and making the viewer intrigued and led to question what is in the foreground and back-ground. Viewers will realize they are not limited to a basic grid like structure when assembling a poster, and typography is malleable, like plastic, and may be manipulated and juxtaposed within images. Weingart’s mission was to expose people to a new, fresh look of work with different printing techniques, and he “discov-ered a new visual attitude and method of experimentation based on a solid teaching foundation.” 2 The piece also gave meaning to design, and layers of information to dissect, just like post modernists tried to dissect the truth about every-thing from culture to religion. Weingart himself stated “typography is boring as hell...what makes it interesting is how you interpret it.”3

06.Weingart’s work reached out to young people and post modernists to empower them to take risks, experiment, and free themselves from established boundaries. The works of Weingart would be seen in workshops in Basel, his work was used to provide inspiration and teaching to other aspiring designers who are looking for a way to integrate a new meaning to swiss graphic design. A feature story in Neue Grafik on Swiss design master Seiegfried Odermatt left Weingart himself greatly inspired. Just as he was given a chance to view masters of swiss design and learn from them, Weingart’s work may have been included in publications such as these to give aspiring designers a new outlook on swiss design. 4 Type found-ries also sent out certain print materials which showcased different typography and new design, his designs may have been recognized as well. More importantly, Weingart’s work was meant to be seen by the public, his posters were shown in exhibitions, and in his younger years in student competitions. A competition that deems very important to the city of Basel called Kunstkredit was a tradition that started in 1919. The state sponsored organization held an annual competition

1 Meggs, p: 471.2 Heller, p:230-2603 Op.cit, Hollis, p. 1654 Weingart, Wolfgang. Weingart: My Way to Typography. Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2000

in support of the arts open to all city citizens, and from 1977-1983 he has made 7 call to entry posters for Kunstkredit, 5 of which the piece analyzed above was part of the collection. His work was accessible to the public, fueling young designers a to see how rules of typography can be broken, designs can be pushed to extremes, mistakes can be made, and it’s still pos-sible to come up with a finished piece as you learn along the way. His contribution to graphic design proves to be legend-ary, and his designs have many characteristics that are adopted as contemporary visions. His use of wide letter spacing, layering of photographic and typographic imagery, solid bands and blocks of reversed type, unconventional mixing type size and weights, and using geometric shapes and typographic units as illustrative devices.”6

07. Post WWII left Germany in a period of major recession, halting economic prosprosperity and means for artistic freedom to flourish. All of society was left to live in ruins and necessities were all rationed out. Society was left hopeless and not eager to rebuild its economy and everything that went awry in the war. The tragic mess left Germans with no hope, many having to flee & it led to the countries period of unrest. Due to the post war economy and lack of advances, Germany was slow to grasp a hold on the artistic freedoms that many other countries had. Post war, mainly in the late 60’s and on to the 70’s Swiss designers were in a stage of confusion regarding where to go with their designs. Designers that still typeset by hand felt lost and “ were caught in a transitional period between old conventions and new conceptions, unsure which direction was tugging harder at our future.” 7 With technological advances, the late 1970’s led to the use of the computer to initiate designs. The use of ITC typefaces became more prevalent in the 1970’s, composed of different weights which could allow designers the freedom to play with scale, movement, and have different areas of texture solely based on typography. More typefaces were becoming released in abridged versions due to the “immediate needs of a market hungry for digital fonts. ”8 In the 1970’s, the International Typographic Style became dominant throughout the world, and the International Type Corporation begins in 1970 as well, which led to a variety of typefaces from which designers could experiment with and use in their designs. Having many new ITC families available on computer systems gave leeway to new designers to manipulate type in a way that was faster, more expressive, and more experimental. Designers became bored with the redundancy of san serif and grid based corpo-rate systems, 9 and became more comfortable with experimentation, whether it be manipulated type, texture, technique, or stretching former design principles and rules to convey hierarchy and form.All these technical advances led to dropping the idea of hand done letterpress type, and provided a faster way to get a final product. In Weingart’s case, he was a master at experimental technique and viewed the computer as something that “speeds things up—but can not produce a new visual language.” 10 He chose to experiment with juxtaposing film to create layers, in order to “form a seamless union between imagery, typography, and technology.” 11

08. Armin Hoffman’s design for the ballet poster “Giselle” proves to be one of the most influential pieces of swiss design. Elements of the swiss style that erupted in the 50’s resembled many of the designs of Weingart’s. Like Weingart’s overlap-ping of architecture and type, the juxtaposition between type and image of the ballerina is deliberately placed and runs off of tangents to the photo itself, making a cohesive design. For example, the image of the ballerina is so soft, gentle, and almost whimsical, and juxtaposed between hard, angular typography provides contrast and provides a balanced composi-tion. Evidence that the composition is balanced and united as it seems the dot of the “I” in the piece is the major unifying element, holding the whole piece together. 12 He rejected the norms of solely horizontal type, while exaggerating the scale of the typography, breaking boundaries of the norm like Weingart did with layers of type & image. In Hoffman’s piece,

5 Ibid, pg 234 6 Looking closer 3: classic writings on graphic design By Michael Bierut p2197 Ibid, pg 2388 Hollis, pg 1809 Heller, p: 23010 Swiss graphic design: the origins and growth of an international style, By Richard Hollis p25711 Design literacy: understanding graphic design By Steven Heller12 Muller, p. 199.

expanded, bold typography conveyed the meaning of power, and intensity, just like Weingart. The black and white color palette was used to create a greater contrast between the striking type and image, as did Weingart. Hoffman also used the idea that traditional typefaces can be replaced by bold san serif type, and the past tradition of using illustrated images was replaced with photography, which is seen in Weingart’s work as well. Weingart and Hoffman both created works to surprise “ through their artistic inspiration and skill, [they] accentuated the contrasts and tensions between design elements to create bold statements, full of surprise and subtlety, which read power-fully from both close-up and at a distance.”13

Another artifact was the magazine Neue Grafik. Neue Grafik was “the single most important factor in establishing the international influence of Swiss Graphic design. The use of photos in design became more prevalent and this publication showcased many designers that were Swiss influenced, using grid systems in unconventional ways and juxtaposing imagery within a design, just like Weingart. Some spreads in the publication were recognized for simplicity of structure, and hierarchy of importance to view materials in a clear way. In midst of all the chaos that Weingart exhibits, there is a certain hierarchy and cohesiveness to his piece. The viewer is pulled into the page with diagonals, and strong contrast between typography and the back ground shows a clear and definite pathway that leads the eye throughout the composition. What Weingart took from Hoffman was exactly the message that he tried to communicate to his audience, and that is rejecting the norm and breaking boundaries.

13 Meggs, p. 473

Works Cited

1. Aynsley, Jeremy . Graphic Design in Germany 1890-1945. Thames & Hudson, 2000.

2. Heller, Martin. Who’s Who in Graphic Design. Zurich: Benteli-Werd Verlags, 1994.

3. Heller, Steven. Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design. Allworth Press, July 2004.

4. Hefland, Jessica, Looking Closer 3 : Classic Writings on Graphic Design. Allworth PressSeptember 1994. 5. Hollis, Richard. Swiss graphic design : the origins and growth of an international style, Laurence King Pub-lishing. 27 November 2006.

6. Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design 3rd edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998.

7. Müller-Brockmann, Josef. “Grid and Design Philosophy” In Texts on Type, edited by Steven Hellerand Philip B. Meggs, 198-200. New York: Allworth Press, 2001.

8.Weingart, Wolfgang. Weingart: My Way to Typography. Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2000.