Research Visual Communication History - Part 2

Swiss Design

I chose the Swiss (or International Typographic) Style - it began in Europe in the 1920's[1], was popular in the 1950's and 60's; and coincided with the German Bauhaus style, De Stijl (The Netherlands) and Constructivism and Suprematism (Russia) (Smeared Black Ink, 2008; Wikipedia, 2016; International Poster Gallery, 2016).

Its characteristics include sans-serif type[2], simple shapes, grid-style layouts, 'white' space and bright colours (Burghart, 2016; Terror, 2009; McCoy, 1994; Tech Samurais, 2013). There are few embellishments and information is organised and structured so it is readable and concise – characteristics vital to web design and user-friendly interfaces as they are to other formats (Terror, 2009) and present in the Flat Style.

The USA and Australia later adopted this style (McCoy, 1994; Barnum et al, 2012); it is now so common among corporations (McCoy, 1994), even my employer, Australia Post, uses it.

Dutch post-war graphic artist, Pieter Huveneers designed Australia Post's logo in 1975. He was previously employed by the British Postal Service. The logo's elements include a 'P' (for Post), a Postal Horn on the right hand side, a 'fire-engine' red, a circle, the symbol on the left side of the text and the Zurich type family (Miekle and Pigot, 2012), designed by Swiss typographer, Adrian Frutiger (Linotype, 2016) for the lettering (op cit).

References

Barnum, A, Haddock, S, Hicks, A and Oppen, F (2012): 'Typography' in Graphic Design: Australian Style Manual; McGraw-Hill Australia, pages 115-121

Burghardt, F (2015): Swiss Style Colour Picker, in Swiss Colours, http://swisscolours.net; see also  http://www.fabianburghardt.de/swisscolors.html; Retrieved 23/01/16 at 07:42:52 AM

Design is History (2016): Swiss Design in http://www.designishistory.com/home/swiss/; retrieved 22/01/16 at 13:35:14

French, N (2014): Creating a Swiss-Style Poster, in Lynda.com, http://www.lynda.com/Illustrator-tutorials/Type-Project-Swiss-Style-Ad/173878-2.html

International Poster Gallery (2016): International Typographic Style,http://www.internationalposter.com/about-poster-art/international-typographic.aspx; retrieved 13:36:52 at 13:36:59

Linotype (2014): Zurich Font Family – Designed by Adrian Frutiger, Details and Background Information, in Linotype.com, http://www.linotype.com/1086975/zurich-family.html?site=details; retrieved 23/01/16 at 08:06:08

McCoy, K (1994): ‘Rethinking Modernism, Revising Functionalism’, Looking Closer: Critical Writings on Graphic Design, Bierut, Drenttel, Heller & Holland, eds., Allworth Press, New York, 1994, p. 49.

Miekle, L and Pigot, E (2012): 'Top Ten Australian Logos: 9th – Australia Post' in Desktop Mag: http://desktopmag.com.au/features/top-10-australian-logos-9th/#.VqKYmSp97cv; published September 20, 2012; retrieved 22/01/16 at 13:33:59

Smeared Black Ink (2008): International Typographic Style, in Smearedblackink.com,http://smearedblackink.com/swiss_style_timeline/; retrieved 23/01/16 at 08:55:12

Tech Samurais (2013): A brief history on Flat Design by Rob, 31 s t July 2013 in http://www.dojo.techsamurais.com/?p=1232; retrieved 12th January, 2016.

Terror, D (2009): 'Lessons from Swiss Style Graphic Design' in Smashing Magazine, https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/lessons-from-Swiss-style-design; published July 17, 2009; retrieved 22/01/16 at 13:45:21

Wikipedia (2016): International Typographic Style, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Typographic_Style; updated 7 January 2016, at 02:45; retrieved 22/01/16 at 06:09:42

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[1] the namesake due to the Swiss making it famous;

[2] like the Helvetica font or typeface, invented in 1957 by Massimo Vignelli [McCoy, 1994], and named after the Latin word for 'resident of Helvetia' [Tech Samurais, 2013])