Chapter 18

Question 1

International Typographic Style

Answer 1

A design movement that emerged from Switzerland and Germany and has also been called Swiss design. The visual characteristics of this style, include a unity of design achieved by asymmetrical organization of the design elements on a mathematically constructed grid; objective photography and copy that present visual and verbal information in a clear and factual manner, free from the exaggerated claims of propaganda and commercial advertising; and use of sans-serif typography set in a flush-left and ragged-right margin configuration

Question 2

Art Concret

Answer 2

A manifesto formulated by Max Bill calling for a universal art of absolute clarity based on controlled arithmetical construction. Paintings in this style were constructed entirely from pure, mathematically exact visual elements-planes and colors. Because these elements have no external meanings, the results are purely abstract

Question 3

semiotics

Answer 3

the philosophical theory of signs and symbols

Question 4

semantics

Answer 4

a branch of semiotics that focuses on the study of the meaning of signs and symbols

Question 5

syntactics

Answer 5

a branch of semiotics that focuses on the study of how signs and symbols are connected and ordered into a structural whole

Question 6

pragmatics

Answer 6

a branch of semiotics that focuses on the study of the relation of signs and symbols to their users

Question 7

tectonic element

Answer 7

an underlying element relating to architecture found in Anton Stankowski’s design program for the city of Berlin

Question 8

Univers typeface

Answer 8

A visually programmed family of 21 sans0serif fonts designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1954. The palette of typographic variations- limited to regular, italic, and bold in traditional typography- was expanded sevenfold. Numbers replaced conventional nomenclature. Because all 21 fonts have the same x-height and ascender and descender lengths, they form a uniform whole that can be used together with complete harmony

Question 9

Helvetica typeface

Answer 9

This new sans-serif, with even larger x-height then that of Univers, was released as Neue Hass Grotesk by Edouard Hoffman and Max Miedinger. When this design was produced in Germany by the now defunct D. Stempel AG in 1961, the face was renamed with the traditional Latin name for Switzerland

Question 10

Manuale Typographicum

Answer 10

These 2 volumes, published in 1954 and 1968 by Herman Zapf, are outstanding contributions to the art of the book. Encompassing 18 languages and more than a 100 typefaces, they consist of quotations about the art of typography, with a full-page typographic interpretation for each quotation

Question 11

Golden Mean

Answer 11

a 3 to 5 ratio considering the most beautifully proportioned rectangle by the ancient Greeks.

Question 12

Ernst Keller

Answer 12

• 1891-1968
• The quality and discipline found in the Swiss design movement can be traced to this designer more than to any other individual. Rather than espousing a specific style, Keller believed the solution to the design problem should emerge from its content. Fittingly, his work encompassed diverse solutions. His poster for the Rietburg Museum demonstrates his interest in symbolic imagery, simplified geometric forms, expressive edges and lettering, and vibrant contrasting color (Fig. 18–1).

Question 13

Theo Ballmer

Answer 13

• 1902-65
• studied briefly at the Dessau Bauhaus under Paul Klee, Walter Gropius, and Hannes Meyer in the late 1920s, and applied De Stijl principles to graphic design in an original way, using an arithmetic grid of horizontal and vertical alignments. In 1928 his poster designs achieved a high degree of formal harmony, as he used an ordered grid to construct visual forms.

Question 14

Max Bill

Answer 14

• 1908-94
• His work encompassed painting, architecture, engineering, sculpture, and product and graphic design. After studying at the Bauhaus with Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers, and Wassily Kandinsky from 1927 until 1929, he embraced the concepts of art concret, a universal art of absolute clarity based on controlled arithmetical construction. During the 1930s, he constructed layouts of geometric elements organized with absolute order. Mathematical proportion, geometric spatial division, and the use of Akzidenz Grotesk type (particularly the medium weight) are features of his work of this period (Figs. 18–2 and 18–3).

Question 15

Otl Aicher

Answer 15

• 1922-91
• played a major role in developing the graphic design program for the Hochschule für Gestaltung (Institute of Design) in Ulm, Germany

Question 16

Anthony Froshaug

Answer 16

• 1918-84
• English typographer who joined the Ulm faculty as a professor of graphic design from 1957 until 1961 and set up the typography workshop there. His design of the Ulm journal’s first five issues is paradigmatic of the emerging movement

Question 17

Max Huber

Answer 17

• 1919-92
• In his designs, bright, pure hues are combined with photographs in intense, complex visual organizations. He took advantage of the transparency of printing inks by layering shapes, typography, and images to create a complex web of graphic information. Sometimes his designs seem pushed to the edge of chaos, but through balance and alignment he maintained order in the midst of complexity

Question 18

Anton Stankowski

Answer 18

• 1906-98
• Particularly innovative in photography, photomontage, and darkroom manipulation of images, he explored visual pattern and form in his close-up photographs of common objects, whose texture and detail were transformed into abstract images. Ideas about color and form from his paintings often find their way into his graphic designs; conversely, wide-ranging form experimentation in search of design solutions seems to have provided shapes and compositional ideas for his fine art. After the war, his work started to crystallize into what was to become his major contribution to graphic design: the creation of visual forms to communicate invisible processes and physical forces. He developed a tectonic element for consistent use on all material of the design program for the city of Berlin

Question 19

Adrian Frutiger

Answer 19

• b.1928
• a Swiss type designer who completed the sans-serif typeface Univers in 1954 while working in Paris. Univers is a comprehensive type family containing twenty-one variations in weight and width all having the same x-height and ascender and descender lengths

Question 20

Edouard Hoffman and Max Miedinger

Answer 20

• 1910-80
• collaborated on a new sans serif with an even larger x-height then that of Univers, which was released as Neue Haas Grotesk. When this design was produced in Germany by the now defunct D. Stempel AG in 1961, the face was named Helvetica, the traditional Latin name of Switzerland.

Question 21

Hermann Zapf

Answer 21

• 1918-2015
• a major German typeface designer who evolved from the traditions of calligraphy and Renaissance typography. A native of Nuremberg, Germany, he started his study of calligraphy after acquiring a copy of Rudolf Koch’s Das Schreiben als Kunstfertigkeit (Writing as Art). He developed an extraordinary sensitivity to letterforms in his activities as a calligrapher, typeface designer, typographer, and graphic designer; all of these activities contributed to his view of typeface design as “one of the most visible visual expressions of an age.” The typefaces he designed during the late 1940s and the 1950s are widely regarded as major type designs. These include Palatino (released in 1950), Melior (1952), and Optima (1958). His two editions of Manuale Typographicum,published in 1954 and 1968, are outstanding contributions to the art of the book

Question 22

Emil Ruder

Answer 22

• 1914-70
• In 1947, he joined the faculty of the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel (Basel School of Design) as the typography instructor and called upon his students to strike the correct balance between form and function. He taught that type loses its purpose when it loses its communicative meaning; therefore, legibility and readability are dominant concerns. His classroom projects developed sensitivity to negative or unprinted spaces, and he advocated systematic overall design and the use of a grid structure to bring all elements—typography, photography, illustration, diagrams, and charts—into harmony with each other while allowing for design variety. Problems of unifying type and image were addressed. His methodology of typographic design and education was presented in his 1967 book, Typography: A Manual of Design, which had a worldwide influence

Question 23

Armin Hofmann

Answer 23

• b.1920
• In 1947, he began teaching graphic design at the Basel School of Design, and together with Emil Ruder he developed an educational model linked to the elementary design principles of the Vorkurs(foundation course) established in 1908. That same year, he opened a design studio in collaboration with his wife, Dorothea, where he applied deep aesthetic values and understanding of form to both teaching and designing. As time passed, he evolved a design philosophy based on the elemental graphic-form language of point, line, and plane, replacing traditional pictorial ideas with a modernist aesthetic. In 1965, he published Graphic Design Manual, a book that presents his application of elemental design principles to graphic design

Question 24

Karl Gerstner

Answer 24

• b. 1930
• the founder of the GGK agency who was inspired by Armin Hofmann’s curriculum.

Question 25

Carlo L. Vivarelli

Answer 25

• 1919-86
• His“For the Elderly” poster, conceived to spread awareness of the elderly and their problems, used the angle of illumination on the face for dramatic impact. Swiss design began to coalesce into a unified international movement when the journal New Graphic Designbegan publication in 1959, with him as an editor

Question 26

Josef Muller-Brockmann

Answer 26

• 1914-96
• Emerging as a leading theorist and practitioner of the movement, he 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. His photographic posters treat the image as an objective symbol, with neutral photographs gaining impact through scale and camera angle (Figs. 18–26 and 18–27). In his celebrated concert posters, the language of constructivism creates a visual counterpart to the structural harmony of the music to be performed (Fig. 18–28). His exhibition poster “Der Film” demonstrates the universal design harmony achieved by mathematical spatial division. The proportions are close to the three-to-five ratio of the golden mean (Fig. 18–29).

Question 27

Siegfried Odermatt

Answer 27

• b. 1926
• played an important role in applying the International Typographic Style to the communications of business and industry. He combined succinct, efficient presentation of information with a dynamic visual quality, using straightforward photography with drama and impact. Ordinary images were turned into convincing and engaging photographs through the careful use of cropping, scale, and lighting, with attention to shape and texture as qualities that cause an image to emerge from the page

Question 28

Rosemarie Tissi

Answer 28

• b. 1937
• joined Siegfried Odermatt’s studio in the early 1960s and is known for her playful work. This studio loosened the boundaries of the International Typographic Style and introduced elements of chance, the development of surprising and inventive forms, and intuitive visual organization into the vocabulary of graphic design

Question 29

Rudolph de Harak

Answer 29

• b. 1924
• his evolution has been a continuing quest for communicative clarity and visual order, which are the qualities he deems vital to effective graphic design. He recognized these qualities in Swiss design during the late 1950s and adapted attributes of the movement, such as grid structures and asymmetrical balance. During the early 1960s, he initiated a series of over 350 book jackets for McGraw-Hill Publishers, using a uniform typographic system and grid. Each book’s subject was implied and articulated through visual configurations ranging from elemental pictographs to abstract geometric structures

Question 30

Jacqueline S. Casey

Answer 30

• 1927-91
• The director of the Design Services Office at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), she worked with Ralph Coburn and Dietmar Winkler to produce publications and posters announcing concerts, speakers, seminars, exhibitions, and courses on the university campus. Many of their solutions are purely typographic, originally created on a drafting table for economical line reproduction. In a sense, letterforms are used as illustrations, for the design and arrangement of the letters in key words frequently become the dominant image

Question 31

Ralph Coburn

Answer 31

• b. 1923
• worked with Jacqueline S. Casey and Dietmar Winkler in the Design Services Office at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to produce publications and posters announcing concerts, speakers, seminars, exhibitions, and courses on the university campus. His poster for the MIT jazz band used a repetition of the letterforms of the word jazz to establish music sequences and animate the space

Question 32

Dietmar Winkler

Answer 32

• b.1938
• worked with Jacqueline S. Casey and Ralph Coburn in the Design Services Office at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to produce publications and posters announcing concerts, speakers, seminars, exhibitions, and courses on the university campus. His poster for a computer programming course used the term COBOLemerging from a kinetic construction of modular letters

Question 33

Arnold Saks

Answer 33

• b.1931
• The ability of elemental forms to express complex ideas with clarity and directness is seen in his “Inflatable Sculpture” exhibition poster.