Swiss style
in graphic design

By the 70s, it had become the main design style in the world, had the greatest impact on corporate identity.

Also known as the international typographic style, the Swiss style

largely shaped the development of graphic design as part of the modernist movement of 1945-1985. Subsequently, he influenced many related fields, including architecture and art.

Although famous for the work of some of the most talented graphic designers in the Netherlands, Germany and Russia, it is still referred to as the Swiss style or Swiss heritage.

The formation
of a new
typography

«Art develops strength to influence the entire culture. More rational art should lead to a renewal of society. »

Theo van Doesburg

After the First World War, many countries strove to create a new international style in the spirit of peace and harmony.

Why did Switzerland experience the strongest development in the interwar and post-war periods?

One of the possible reasons was that Switzerland remained neutral during both conflicts. At that moment, it became a haven for intellectuals and a center for creative ideas from all over the world, from England and Holland to Germany and Russia.

The first attempt to formulate the principles of the "new style" is considered to be the book "international style: architecture after 1922", which described the key rules of international style.

In 1917, they formed the Association "style" ("De Stijl"), and soon the magazine of the same name, showing the ideas of their ideologues. Van Doesburg and Mondrian, like members of the Bauhaus and constructivism, wanted to change society through art.

By 1920, the group and its magazine "De Stijl" had reached an international level. At the same time, van Dusburg became familiar with Dadaism, Russian constructivism, and Suprematism.

A special propensity for constructive pure forms can be explained by the rational "Protestant objectivity" inherent in the population of those regions where the new typography was most in demand. These are the North German lands and several cities in Switzerland-mainly Basel and Zurich.

The clearest exponent of the ideas of the latest typography was Jan Tschichold. His article "Elementary typography" from 1924, was the first among the key theoretical works where he presented the principles of modern typography. Special attention was paid to Suprematism and neoplasticism, which emphasize the priority of elementary geometric forms such as square, triangle, and circle.

In your article Tschichold synthesized avant-garde artistic principles and adapted them to the practice of new typography. Jan tschichold made not only a great theoretical contributions, but also created graphic works that are considered classics. For example, the film posters he created in 1927, where fonts, black-and-white photographs and geometric color fills are expressive means. These posters clearly show the influence of El Lissitzky, man ray, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

In 1928 in Berlin, Jan Tschichold presented to the society his new job — "the New typography: a Handbook for modern designers". The book had the character of a practical guide for both professionals and Amateur typographers.

In 1933, Chichold and his family emigrated to Basel, Switzerland, where his concept of new typography influenced the emergence of the Swiss school of graphic design. During the same period, due to objective historical reasons, Germany lost its leading position in the field of graphic design, giving way to Switzerland.

In 1927 and 1930, the first two exhibitions were held in Basel, which introduced the new typography to the public. Then, a series of significant cultural events continued the exhibition "Bauhaus Dessau", held at the craft Museum in Basel, and then in Zurich.

Thanks to these events, interest in design has emerged not only in the artistic community, but also in the political and business environment. Thanks to the intensive exhibition process, the formation of the Swiss style Institute began.

By the mid-1950s, a methodological platform for the international style of typography was created, which was accurately described by E. Chernevich: "The Swiss school is distinguished by frequently used documentary photography and accidental grotesque, color due to the theme, simplicity, business-like wording of the text, strict composition based on a modular system."

Creative
inspiration

The international style was formed at the intersection of art and design in the 1914-1939

It is based on the theoretical and artistic practices of the Russian constructivists of the 1920s and 1930s, the German Werkbund, the “De Stijl” group in the Netherlands and the Bauhaus school.

Suprematism and Constructivism

Inspired by the 1917 revolution, Russian artists such as Kazimir Malevich and El Lissitzky sought to redefine the art of the coming socialist era. Their solutions, Suprematism and Constructivism, used simplified geometric shapes and strict sans serif typography, placed in unusual configurations.

De Stijl

Founded in Holland by the artists Theo Van Doosburg and Pete Mondrian, a movement that became known as "De Stijl" (or simply "Style"). Spanning architecture, painting, and graphic design, the principles of the Style are rooted in mathematics and modular grids that served as tools for composition.

Bauhaus

The Bauhaus was founded to provide a wide range of curricula in arts and crafts, but under the direction of the architect Walter Gropius, it became particularly focused on architectural modernism.
In this environment, artists adapted elements of both Russian constructivism and De Stijl, including simple geometric shapes, sans-serif typography, and grids.

Swiss innovation

By 1920, a progressive creative movement had formed in Switzerland, which was able to offer and justify the principles of a new era of Swiss design to the schrok society.

Precision in detail, craft skills, education and technical training, and high standards of printing and typography laid the Foundation for a new mechanism that has been successfully distributed around the world since the 1950s.

Swiss typographic style. Key features.

The Swiss style, which emerged from modernist and constructivist ideals, can be

The Swiss style, which emerged from modernist and constructivist ideals, can be defined as a genuine pursuit of simplicity and beauty in emphasizing a goal rather than beauty as a goal in itself.
The principle of "form follows function" became the battle cry of modernist architects after the 1930s. As a consequence of this principle, much of the Swiss-style craft was devoted to elements such as typography and layout composition rather than ornament or illustrations.

Uniform and geometry

Even a cursory examination of classic Swiss-style work reveals a strong focus by graphic designers for uniform design elements and strict geometric shapes. Graphic artists of the time experimented with abstract geometric patterns, unusual color combinations, and manipulations with text, resulting in striking visual effects.

Free space: text can breathe

The Swiss style suggested using fewer elements to organize layouts. So instead of adding more markup elements, the designers chose to remove as many as possible. This is a great illustration of the "less is more" principle and the "content is interface" wisdom.

This also proved to be beneficial for businesses, as people are more willing to interact with information that is easier for them to perceive and tend to reject what they do not understand.

Modular grids

The first grid models have existed since the middle ages. More modern and consistent systems for working with layouts were first introduced in the book "grid systems in graphic design" by Joseph Muller-Brockmann, which helped spread modern knowledge about grids around the world.

Modular grids are now a well-established tool that is often used by printers and web designers to create well-balanced layouts.

"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing to take away"

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Logical content structure

These posters have a very clear structure. Definitely, a tabular structure is one of the tricks of visual hierarchy, where the layout of information begins to hint at the meaning of the data and how different pieces of data relate to each other.

Simplicity

The influences of movements such as constructivism, elementaryism and minimalism are strongly traced in the works of Swiss artists.

A headset is one of the fundamental elements of visual communication that can accurately convey the required message. According to the principles of the Swiss school, such a basic element as typography has a sufficiently large aesthetic potential, so that additional visual elements are rarely needed.

I don't think a typeface should be expressive at all.

I can write the word "dog" in any font, and it doesn't have to look like a dog.

But there are people who think that when they write the word "dog" it should bark.

Massimo Vignelli
in the documentary Helvetica

Discard serifs

One of the most powerful features of Swiss-style typography is the use of sans-serif fonts such as Akzidenz Grotesk and Neue Haas Grotesk (today known as Helvetica). Helvetica, a font that was developed in 1957 and launched in 1960, is also known for its popularity: it is used "for everything", from signage (such as the new York city subway) to magazines, corporate identity, or web pages.

This is by no means a hard and fast rule. The Swiss-style designers who advocated the use of sans-serif fonts ignored the historical legacy and simply experimented with something new.

Over time, even Jan Tschichold himself admitted that his book was too harsh and authoritarian.

Font size as a tool of influence

In Swiss-style works, different font sizes not only create a visual impression, but also give readers a hint about the hierarchy of the data presented. Huge headers are entry points, top-level elements in the content information architecture and page hierarchy.

It is an effective way to direct the reader's attention, thus serving as an interface to the content.

The photo

A slightly less popular but equally important part of Swiss style is the use of photography. Since photography was a much better tool for depicting reality than drawings and illustrations, Neue Grafik, an important Swiss publication on graphic design at the time, devoted quite a lot of attention to photography and its application in design.