Swiss Graphic Design Essay

The 1950s saw the full development of a design movement that is apparently the most critical visual design style of the twentieth century as far as its sweeping effect, its life span, and its scope of pragmatic applications is concerned. The style started in Switzerland and Germany and is often alluded to as Swiss Style, yet it is formally known as the International Typographic Style. Its strength in numerous territories of graphic design covers a twenty-year period from the early 1950s to the late 60s, yet it remains impactful up till the recent times. As Richard Hollis puts forward in his book “Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965”, the Swiss Style has vital elements that are widespread throughout

Components from Bauhaus, De Stijl and The New Typography are bestrewed all through the works of Max Bill, Ersnt Keller,Armin Hofmann and Josef-Müller Brockmann who were the innovators and pioneers of Swiss

He started working with Zurich Tonhalle in 1951 and continued till 1972. It is worth how he geometric forms and then explored furthermore in typographic forms with dynamic alignment on the space of the poster.. Every poster from this series was designed for music concerts. Where the Beethoven concert poster has lines that interestingly mimic an old concert hall with minimal colors, the Strawinsky makes use of symbolism. The arrangement of the components involve: typography, shape, spatial relations, rhythmic proportions, and color functioned through a well knit mathematical employment of the grid. The strict however commendable employment of components is evident in the concert poster for the Tonhalle Gesellschaft Zurich of 1955. The dissection of the poster as being without any ink and just being a compositional drawing, one can see the structural image coming into place. The poster comprises vertical as well as horizontal lines, roughly, on a thirty to forty five degree angle. This particular angle leads to a certain sense of movement that suggests musical breath or musical chords. This execution can been seen on numerous levels: the musical development of the vertical and even lines against the 30 degree pivot, the inwards junction of components using this central axis , the figure-ground relationship of the components, the utilization of complexity through changing components,