Christian Brändle

Karin Gimmi

Bettina Richter

Barbara Junod

100 Years of Swiss Graphic Design takes a fresh look at Swiss typography and photo-graphics, posters, corporate image design, book design, journalism and typefaces over the past hundred years. With illuminating essays by prominent experts in the field and captivating illustrations, this book, designed by the Zurich studio NORM, presents the diversity of contemporary visual design while also tracing the fine lines of tradition that connect the work of different periods. The changes in generations and paradigms as manifested in their different visual languages and convictions are organized along a timeline as well as by theme. The various fields of endeavor and media are described, along with how they relate to advertising, art, and politics. Graphic design from Switzerland reflects both itnernational trends and local concerns. High conceptual and formal quality, irony and wit are its constant companions. A new, comprehensive reference work on Swiss design.

100 Years of Swiss Graphic Design

Michael Renner

Franziska Nyffenegger

Invar-Torre Hollaus

Teal Triggs

Amanda Unger

Corina Neuenschwander

Peter Vetter

Davide Fornari

Roland Früh

Leslie Kennedy

Robert Lzicar

François Rappo

Mapping Graphic Design History in Switzerland

"Lucerne--Switzerland's poster town--has a vibrant graphic design scene, which in recent years has become known for its sophisticated posters well beyond the country's borders. Professional colleagues are in awe of how a relatively small city can produce so many well-designed posters. Lucerne posters can be found in many exhibitions. To give one example: in 2015 alone, twenty-six of the hundred best posters from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland came from Lucerne and the surrounding area--in other words, more than a quarter of all the awardwinning works. What's behind this? Is it coincidence or a preponderance of designers of above-average talent in a comparatively small area? The book Poster Town tracks this phenomenon with a wealth of images and texts and creates a record of Lucerne's poster designs for posterity. The content of the book is archived and showcased in an extended form on the website www.postertown.ch"--

Luzern and Its Graphic Design Community

Poster Town

Gerda Breuer

The Magic of Things explores a former advertising strategy of Swiss product posters in which banal, everyday objects--butter, a sewing machine, or shoes--are presented as desirable objects enticing us to buy. Free from any further contextualization, the objects acquire a sensual presence and magical aura. The product poster had its heyday in Switzerland in the 1940s with designers such as Niklaus Stoecklin, Peter Birkhauser, or Otto Baumberger. As consumer society developed, however, the exclusive focus on the product and the brand name was no longer enough--in advertising, the feelings associated with the object as it related to life grew increasingly important. Today it is in the cultural poster that the magical depiction of things is experiencing a kind of renaissance."

Magic of things

Bettina Richter

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