Chapter 18

International Typographic Style, also known as Swiss design, came about during the 1950's and was characterized by a grid design which was sometimes clearly included in the overall design and sometimes ommitted. Information was presented clearly and a very organized manner, often left-aligned and sans serif. This style of design also left behind propaganda and exaggerated design to ensure the clearity of the portrayal of the message. Ernst Keller, a teacher at the School of Applied Art, was an important designer in the development of Swiss design. He felt that the content of an image should decide the design and not fit a specific style. Theo Ballmer was also a designer that had an impact on Swiss design. He studied at the Bauhaus and was influenced by De Stijl. His poster designs utilized the mathematical grid of Swiss design and geometric letterforms. Another student of Bauhaus, Max Bill, was influential in not just graphics, but in many other fields including architecture and painting. Art Concret was his idea for a universal design of clarity built on mathematics and was visually abstract. Bill designed based on an organized and ordered whole, utilizing the ideas of mathematics such as permutations and sequences and grids. Another unique contribution to design was given by a designer from Zurich by the name of Anton Stankowski. He was known for taking photos of everyday objects and abstracting them in his designs from the patterns and textures he found. From this, a visual form of invisible forces and processes such as radio waves and the conduction of heat was produced in his posters. Like I said before, one of the characteristics of this style was the use of sans-serif type styles. Adrian Frutiger designed twenty-one styles of the Univers family that exhibited a unity together that wasn't repeated in Helvetica by Edouard Hoffman and Max Miedinger. Herman Zapf designed a roman inspired Palatino, a modern Melior, and a thick sans-serif called Optima. All were influenced by past typefaces, but also displayed Zapf's understanding of the modern time and technology. Several other designers that furthered the Swiss design style came from either Zurich or Basel at this time, where the major design schools were at. Josef Muller-Brockmann came from Zurich and became important to this style. He wanted to design and convey a message without his own feelings and ideas getting in the way of what the viewer thought. He used the overall design as a symbol and scaled photos and different angles to achieve clarity and impact. Josef also utilized geometric forms and symbols as well as grids in his designs. Siegfried Odermatt was also influential in the clarity and impact of his works, but applied in the business and corporate end of design. He used typography to achieve the same impact graphics could simply by the strength and organizational placement of the type. The Swiss design style was influential in America after the war. The grid structure and asymmetries were adapted into designs for book covers and album covers and was embraced at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology.
I particularly enjoy the works of Stankowski and Muller-Brockmann. I like the idea of creating patterns to represent things that we physically cannot see and often can't feel, with the exception of heat. I also like the way Muller-Brockmann used scale in the photo elements of his designs. I think that they have a bigger impact and are more dynamic that way.
What was the big deal with the application of mathematical methods and grids in design?