Swiss Graphic Design Histories—Tempting Terms Terms Design Histories—Tempting Swiss Graphic Swiss Tempting Terms advertisement Graphic Design alternative actors Histories Arts and Crafts associations awards canonization clients culture and commerce design promotion design scenes discourse education policy ephemera exhibition design exhibitions France good design historiography identity Italy local and international magazines Modernism museum national identity national label networks origins politics posters practice printing industry private collectors profession publications schools self-promotion standardization training typography Swiss Visual Arguments Graphic Design Histories advertisement alternative actors Arts and Crafts associations awards canonization career Multiple Voices clients culture and commerce advertisement curriculum associations design scenes awards discourse career diversity clients education policy culture and commerce exhibition design curriculum Tempting Terms exhibitions design scenes gender diversity advertisement handwriting France alternative actors historiography good design Arts and Crafts identity Italy associations Italy local and international awards magazines national label canonization Modernism networks clients national identity politics culture and commerce networks practice design promotion photographs profession design scenes politics representation discourse posters schools education policy practice self-promotion ephemera profession skills exhibition design publications stereotypes exhibitions regionalism Swiss Style France representation Swissness good design schools teaching historiography self-promotion technology identity skills type design Italy standardization typography local and international stereotypes magazines Swissness Modernism Swiss Style museum teaching national identity technology national label templates networks training origins type design politics typography posters practice printing industry private collectors profession publications schools self-promotion standardization training typography Swiss Tempting Terms Graphic Design Histories Edited by Ueli Kaufmann, Peter J. Schneemann, Sara Zeller Scheidegger & Spiess Table of Contents Reading between the Lines Iconophile—Debating the Neue Schweizer of Swiss Graphic Design Role of the Poster Collector Schulschrift—Tracing History Fred Schneckenburger Exchanges between Roland Früh, Ueli Kaufmann, in the Historiography of Modernist Typography Peter J. Schneemann, Swiss Graphic Design and Swiss Handwriting Sara Zeller Sara Zeller Ueli Kaufmann p. 7 p. 49 p. 111 Cave Paintings—Continu- In eigener Sache—Editorial Popular Culture—How the ities and Progress in Statements Addressing the Museum für Gestaltung Graphic Designers’ Histo- Readership Zürich Promoted the Every- ries Roland Früh day in Graphic Design Ueli Kaufmann p. 63 Robert Lzicar p. 14 p. 126 Kunsthalle Bern—Graphic Die besten Plakate / Design in the Context of Schweizer Graphik—Curat- Les meilleures affiches— an Institution for Contem- ing Switzerland as a The Early Years of the porary Art Graphic Design Nation National Poster Award, Roland Früh, Ueli Kaufmann, in 1925 between Federal Support Peter J. Schneemann, Roland Früh, Ueli Kaufmann, and Stylistic Authority Sara Zeller Robert Lzicar, Sara Zeller Sara Zeller p. 79 p. 140 p. 26 Lehni Frame—Implications Sonderstellung—Debating Hotspot Milan—The Perks of Displaying Graphic the Status of Graphic of Working on the Design Design Education at the Other Side of the Alps Sara Zeller Kunstgewerbeschule Chiara Barbieri, p. 92 Zürich Davide Fornari Rudolf Barmettler, p. 38 Netzwerke / Réseaux/ Jonas Niedermann Networks—A Relaunch to p. 152 Reposition Federal Design Promotion Jonas Berthod p. 101 Table of Contents The Basel School—Decon- structing Labels of Swiss Graphic Design Education Sarah Klein, Sandra Bischler p. 161 Unfamiliar Writing Forms— Instances of Various Scripts in Swiss Graphic Designers’ Publications Ueli Kaufmann p. 169 Visualiste—Defining a New Job Title within Graphic Design in France Constance Delamadeleine p. 181 Weltformat—Setting (Swiss) Display Aesthetics for Posters Sara Zeller p. 187 DOI: 10.53788/SWBE0300 Introduction 7 Reading between the Lines of design label, a canon of designers, works, and Swiss Graphic Design History publications emerged that forms the basis of practice, theory, and history to this day. This Roland Früh, Ueli Kaufmann, canon was to a large extent created and Peter J. Schneemann, distributed by the practitioners themselves Sara Zeller through publications, lectures, and exhibi- tions. An early example of how Swiss graphic designer Josef Müller-Brockmann spread selected names abroad is to be found at the Sixth International Design Conference in This publication on the reassessment of Swiss Aspen in 1956. At the end of his lecture about graphic design history has the format of a contemporary “visual art” in Switzerland, reference book. It assembles a variety of key- he presented a list of all the designers “who words that are without any systematic order, contribute an essential share to the forma- or normative or comprehensive conception. tion of style in Switzerland.”3 Those he named We consider this approach to be an appropri- in his partial list were: Adolf Flückiger, Karl ate response to the expectations raised by Gerstner, Armin Hofmann, Siegfried Oder- the title of the research project “Swiss Graphic matt, Richard Paul Lohse, Hans Neuburg, Nelly Design and Typography Revisited.” How Rudin, Emil Ruder, Gottlieb Soland, Carlo might a critical rereading of a national label Vivarelli, Alfred Willimann, Max Schmid, Enzo be achieved—a label that is equally under- Rösli, Igildo Biesele, and Josef Müller- stood as a style, as an economic argument in Brockmann.4 His who’s who of Swiss graphic graphic design history, and as an ongoing design thus concludes with his own name. practice?1 This leads us to a fundamental specific- The term “Swiss Graphic Design” has ity in graphic design historiography: in been used for different, changing phenom- self-authored publications, graphic design- ena, and its signification oscillates between ers interwove their own design theories styles and professional practices. In the with examples of what they perceived as out- same context, other terms such as Swiss standing works, thus creating the afore- Style, Swiss Typography, (Swiss) Interna- mentioned canon of Swiss graphic design.5 tional (Typographic) Style, Swiss Modernism, Clearly it is no coincidence, for example, or Konstruktive Gebrauchsgrafik have all that Karl Gerstner and Markus Kutter com- been used as specifications, either alongside mented explicitly on their goals in their each other, or as synonymous with “Swiss publication Die neue Graphik / The New Graphic Design” and with each other.2 Within Graphic Art / Le nouveau art graphique from this ambiguous construct of a national 1959:6 Introduction 8 Our object was […] to take what is more area or catch a rising tide of interest or less familiar and arrange it in such a before they disappear onto dusty shelves. way that the stylistic relations between A few others last, are referred to and rec- the parts become apparent and the for- ommended by one generation to another.9 midable abundance of works of graphic art can be examined in a perspective To this day, the contemporary graphic design which allows their chief lines of develop- scene continues to profit from the label, the ment to be discerned and a better under- canon, and prestige; it reactivates, updates, standing of the whole to be obtained.7 and redefines the master narrative in line with certain aesthetics, terms, and concepts. In Their text was specifically written with the classrooms, studios, exhibitions, and publica- goal of defining a new field of competence. tions, Swiss Style or Swiss Graphic Design Claims to a tradition were used to project into remains a recurring topic, and prac titioners the future. However, this reference to a cor- and established institutions alike make use pus of design should not lead to any misun- of the notion of this national label, thus further derstanding that historiography was simply strengthening it.10 For example, in the publica- orchestrated by Swiss graphic designers. tion that accompanied the exhibition 100 Years Both texts and visual showcases have to be of Swiss Graphic Design at the Museum understood as being part of the process für Gestaltung Zürich in 2012, Swiss graphic of international exchange and international design was claimed to be “one of the coun- reception.8 Nevertheless, as these publi- try’s leading products.”11 Awards continue the cations were the only references to Swiss tradition of singling out contemporary, best- graphic design for a long time, they were practice examples. Thus instead of critically not usually understood within their original questioning the label, they further dissemi- context of teaching or of design theory, nate the idea of specific national design com- but read rather uncritically as history books. petences.12 As with the practitioner-organized In an essay included in a 2007 revised edition exhibition Swiss Style Now, even when com- of Karl Gerstner’s Programme entwerfen, mentators emphasize contemporary design Richard Hollis, a major voice in the historiog- production and inno vation, they still make ref- raphy of graphic design, reflected in an erence to a national tradition: almost poetic way on the changing status of these “sources” as they shift between the Swiss Style