International Swiss Style

The international Swiss Style, also known as the International Typographic Style is a graphic design style that was created in Switzerland in the 1950’s. The graphic design style choice has a strong sense of cleanliness, readability and sleek design.  Notable ascetics of this graphic style are asymmetrical layouts, use of san-serif type treatments (notable example: Akzidenz Grotesk) use of grids and left aligned copy/text. Objective photography is also another design element that can be used to clearly present information. These photographs are absent of any persuading influences that propaganda or commercial advertising possesses.  Often times, type if favored in this style as opposed to illustrations or drawings.

The International Swiss Style’s early years began in two major Swiss design schools. The first school was where Ernst Keller became a teacher; the Zurich School of the Applied Arts. He was actually more of a professor as opposed to a teacher, as he would rather teach his philosophy on style, one that dictated “the solution to the design problem should emerge from its content” Keller’s works would include geometric shapes, bright colors and expressive imagery to further clarify the meaning behind each one of his designs. Due to his exceptional teaching at the School of Applied Art, Keller was dubbed “the father of the Swiss school of graphics.”

In the 1950s, San serif font families such as Univers came into play. Univers was used as a template by Max Miednger and his collaborator Edouard Hoffman to create Helvetica, also known as Neue Hass Grotesk, one of the most common typefaces used today.

A publication in the 1959s titled “New Graphic Design” was created. It was edited by several designers that were particularly influential in the development of the International Swiss Style. The journal’s formant exhibited several of the key elements that the style possessed through visual demonstration. The publications was published throughout the world, thus spreading the Swiss Style beyond the borders of Switzerland.

Josef Muller-Brockmann, one of the various editors “sought an absolute and universal form of graphic expression through objective and impersonal presentation, communicating to the audience without the interference of the designer’s subjective feelings or propagandistic techniques of persuasion.” Brockmann is recognized for his simplistic designs and his use of shapes, colors and uses of type; Akzidenz-Grotesk begin his most notably used typeface.

After World War II, international trade had started to increase and relations between countries started to grow and a steadily stronger pace. Clarity, objectivity, region-less glyphs, symbols --- All of these assets of Typography and design were essential to communicated with partners all around the globe. This is how the International Swiss Style broke free of its bindings and found its place in this communicative climate and carried its way over to America.

Rudolph de Hark, full name “Ram Shree Ram Rudolph de Harak” born April 24^th, 1924, was an American graphic designer that was one of the first American designers to integrate Swiss design with his on design styling. Many book jacket designs that Rudolph designed for McGraw-Hill publishers in the 1960’s incorporate this style, often with left-aligned type and an eye-catching image that elucidates the theme of the book.

Peter Behren

Peter Behrens, born on April 14^th, 1868 was regarded as one of the most influential 20^th century German designers as well as being one of the architectural reform leaders entering the new century. He designed factories in brick, steel and glass. He was the designer of AEG’s turbine factory created in 1910. Before moving to industrial art, he was an illustrator, painter and book binder.  In 1907, as the artistic consultant of AEG, he designed the entirety of the company’s identity, which included logotype, product design, publicity and several other aspects. With said design works under his belt, he was considered the first industrial designer in history. He created the concept of “corporate identity”. He also created a few typefaces, including Behrens-Schrift, Behrens-Antiqua and Behrens Medieval.

Peter and ten other people created the German Werkbund, the German Association of Craftsmen; a German association that was home to several artists, designers, industrialists and architects. One function of the Werkbund was to serves as an important event in the maturation of modern architecture and industrial design, specifically in the later creation of the Bauhaus school of design. Werkbund was not so much an artistic movement, but more so an attempt at putting Germany on a competitive level with England and the United States while integrating traditional crafts with industrial mass-production techniques.

Peter Behrens was a very talented multifaceted artist. As stated before, he worked in several different mediums and styles as a painter, illustrator and book-binder and wood-blocker artist. Since he later specialized as an “industrial artist” a majority of his works thereafter were primarily some form of household appliance or item, in which many were made in some form of metal that were mass produced.  

 The majority of his metal works include tea kettles, lamps, candlestick holders, clocks, and fans to name a few. His metal fans consist of a thin wire frame exterior along with four blades inside the fan itself. The wire frames on the outside of the fans he has created vary in form. Half of the frames consist of wavy thin strands of metal while the other half have uniform and non-distorted strands of metal. Similar strokes can be seen in his illustrations as hair as shown in “The Kiss” in 1898 as well as his textile designs or ornamental patterns. He also created several objects in stone, primarily containers of some sort. He has created vessels from syrup jars to urns to spice jars, decorated with some type of floral design.