The International Typographic, or Swiss, Style was developed in the 1950s emerging after the Second World War has concluded. This style movement focused on simplicity and legibility; ensuring that typography could be easily read was a key concern of this style. This was a step forward in ensuring accessibility of design, as prior design styles had been much more complex and were arguably inaccessible for this reason. Sans-serif fonts such as Helvetia were most commonly used during this era due to their simplicity and modern look, further adding to the simplicity that many Swiss Style designers aimed to achieve. Many designs of this style were structured, using grids and mathematical approaches to assist in the process, but also used asymmetry and typography to add authenticity and uniqueness to designs, such as posters.
Helvetica is a typeface that was designed by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman in 1957. This font was designed to be plain and simple without any meaning attached. Therefore, it is relatively consistent with no serifs or unique designs, making it ideal to use when the goal is form readers to just read a text without distraction. This font really became popular when it was used as a key typeface within the Swiss Style.
Armin Hoffman was a key pioneer of the Swiss Style. Born in Switzerland in 19920, Hoffman began his design journey in 1947 when he began teaching at Schule für Gestaltung (Basel School of Design). His unique teaching approach encouraged creativity and playfulness, something that many designers at the time avoided as it was common to strictly adhere to using grid systems. Hoffmans designs were very unique and experimental compared to many others at the time, using a max of structure and asymmetry to produce something that was accessible yet visually appealing. One key characteristic of his work was incorporating point, line and plane into his work, rather than just choosing one of these to use. The majority of Hoffmans influential posters were created in the 50s and 60s.
I find Hoffmans work very visually appealing and modern. In fact, like many of the Designer’s works I have learned about over the past few weeks, I feel that many of his works would still be impressive if produced today. In my opinion, producing timeless works really shows Hoffmans skills as a Designer.
Emil Rudder is a second key figure in the Swiss Style. He and Hoffman met in Schule für Gestaltung in 1947, sparking a collaboration which would lead them to work together and be recognised wordwide for years to come. Similarly to Hoffman, many of Rudders works were very much experimental, leading to him having a very distinctive style.
Ruder can be credited for spreading the word about the Swiss Style through his 1967 publishing “Typographie: A Manual for Design”. This book quickly gained popularity, becoming a fundamental text for Designers wishing to understand typography.
Josef Müller-Brockmann, born in 1914 in Switzerland, is recognised as on of the most influential Graphic Designers of the 20th century. He wanted his works to be uniform and neat, using empty space expressively and generally using exclusively lower-case sans-serif typefaces. Similarly to the other Swiss-Style designers mentioned, he used grids and a mathematical approach in his designs. All of the forementioned techniques give Brockmann’s work a very neat style.
From my personal research, I found that Brockmann is often called the founder of the Grid system, particularly after his 1961 publishing ‘Grid Systems in Graphic Design’.
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Reflection on this weeks work, I recognise how much I appreciate the International Typographic Style. From our reverse history content during week 1 which briefly touched on this design era, I have been drawn to their work. I genuinely felt quite excited when learning about the Swiss Style, as it’s the first that I’ve really felt drawn to an era of design that isn’t seen much in the modern world.
In particular, I find Josef Müller-Brockmann’s brilliant and plan to look into his work more in the coming weeks. In future projects, I can see myself using him alongside other Swiss Style designers as inspiration.
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