CORPORATE IDENTITY SYSTEMS · pean typographical design was Paul Rand (b. 1914), who began his career in 1937 as art director os Esquire and Apparel Art Magazines. Between 1941 and

NEUE GRAFIK DESIGN

Meggs, Philipp. “The International Typographic Style“ in A History of Graphic Design, 1983

Drucker, Johanna. McVarish, Emily. in Graphic Design History, 2009.

The spread of the International Typographic Style paralleled the growth of corporate culture. The Swiss style sprang from its own aesthetic sources, but its clean, neutral forms were so well suited to the image needs of the new business patterns that the entire movement could have been invented to serve those interests. [...] Journals, corporate communications, and serial advertise-ments were designed as stylistic wholes that affirmed consistency as much as clarity. Clean, unfussy directness was the primary aim of this approach. In their teaching and their practice, key graphic designers such as Max Bill, Josef Muller-Brockmann, Emil Ruder, and Armin Hofmann stressed a highly logical, grid-based system of layout.

Among those who fled to neutral Switzerland during the war were Bauhaus and De-stijl designers. In Zurich, Walter Herdeg (Switzerland, b. 1908) founded Graphis Magazine (1944), which promoted a racionalist approach the graphic design.

In the 1950s, two sans serif typefaces came to dominate internatio-nally on account of their legibility and readability: the Univers family (1954), and Helvetica (1957). Both were adopted for public signage troughout the Europe and have remained in use, with variations, ever since.

Dormer, Peter. in Design Since 1945, 1993

In a country with such outstanding design schools as Switzerland, Siegfried Odermatt (b. 1926) is a rarity: the self-educated graphic designer. [...] Working for corporate clients in the areas of trademark development, informational graphics, advertising, and packaging, Odermatt played an important role in defining the International Typographic Style as applied to the communications of business and industry. [...] Odermatt seeks ori-ginality through the idea, not through visual style - graphic design is alwa-ys seen as an instrument of communication, and the visual tools used are typography, photography, and constructive drawing.

During the post-World War II era the spirit of internationalism grew. Increased trade enabled multinational corporations to operate in over a hundred different countries. The speed and pace of comunications were turning the world into a global village. There was a need for communicative clarity, for multilingual formats to ascend language barriers, and for ele-mentary pictographs and photographs to enable people from around the world to comprehend is and information. The new graphic design develo-ped Switzerland helped fulfill these needs, and its fundamental contents and methodology spread throughout the world.

In 1968 the senate of the city of Berlin charged Stankowski and his studio with developing a comprehensive design program for that city. Con-sistent design standards for architectural signage, street signs, and publi-cations were developed. Instead of designing a trademark or unique typo-graphic logo for use as the unifying visual element, Stankowski developed a tectonic element for consistent use on all material. This long horizontal line, with a short vertical line rising from it, became a symbol for the then--divided city of Berlin. The vertical line represented the Berlin Wall which, til 1989, separated the Russian-occupied portion of the city from the rest of Berlin. The word Berlin, set in medium Akzidenz Grotesk, is always placed in the right side of the tectonic element.

The International Typographic Style was rapidly embraced in corpo-rate and institutional graphics during the 1960s and remained a prominent aspect of American design for over two decades. A growing awareness of design as a logical tool for large organizations after World War II caused a growth in corporate design and visual-identification systems. During the middle 1960s the development of corporate design and the International Typographic Style were linked into one movement.


Advocates for Swiss design included the American, Rudolph de Ha-rak, as well as those, like Siegfried Odermatt and Rosemarie Tissi, who ne-ver left Switzerland but whose work circulated influentially.

In Japan, Graphic Design, a magazine established by Masaru Katsu-mi in 1959, promoted the International Typographic Style. In turn, Japanese graphic design caught the editorial eye of Western magazines like Graphis.Sociologist Kenneth Boulding’s 1956 book, The Image, had an enormous impact on corporate managers. The idea of value added by a symbolic pro-file gave rise to the perception that graphic designers could have a dra-matic influence on the success of a corporation. Graphic designers played a key role in the public image of these products, creating campaigns that embodied an aesthetic of mass style production.


The sophistication and proliferation of technology’s media has made graphic design a powerfull influence. [...] Prominent figures in the avant garde of the 1930s, such as Piet Zwart (1885-1977), passed the ba-ton of De Stijl and its influences to subsequente generations of designers. Zwart combined De Stijl with Dada, a combination of the rational and the anti-rational to be seen in contemporary leaders of Dutch graphic design, such as Gert Dumbar (b. 1940) and Wim Crouwel (b. 1928). Crouwel set up his influential graphic design practice in 1952, and in 1963 was a founding member of Total Design, a company wich has made its reputation fot its su-pport of Functionalism and the International Typographyc Style, and for the complex information design projects such as their award-winning signage for Schiphol Airport at Amsterdam.

Among those graphic designers in the USA most affected by Euro-pean typographical design was Paul Rand (b. 1914), who began his career in 1937 as art director os Esquire and Apparel Art Magazines. Between 1941 and 1954 he began to specialize in corporate design, especially company logos and trademarks, and later worked on a new corporate identity pro-gramme for IBM.


A consistent style conferred authority and reliability. But the appa-rent unity provided by a single logotype also hid the diversity of practices and people involved in the production of goods and services. A company like CIBA had a wide variety of geographically dispersed chemical plants, factories, and mining concerns. Chase Manhattan Bank had many bran-ches and subdivisions with holding in real estate, currency markets, and other financial enterprises. The image of a single entity concealed this complexity as well as the risks to investors and workers, or costs in natural resources that might be involved.

Highly professional firms such as Chermayeff & Geismar and Uni-mark established their own brand identities while purveying them to others. The visual landscape was transformed, as corporate identity systems for Alcoa, Ford, J.C Penney, Panasonic, British Petroleum, Chase Manhattan, the International Paper Company, and other giants accustomed the public to a coded language of sovereign logos, signature typography, and pro-prietary color schemes. The corporate report, an annual description of fi-nancial achievements sent to shareholders, became a major opportunity to showcase graphic design.In addition to private corporations, public entities such as railways and postal systems assumed visual identities. The role of the graphic designer as to convey the essence of an organization’s identity.

Keeping all elements of a corporation’s graphic identity unified was a challenge, especially when companies had multiple, scattered offices, each with its own design staff and production capabilities. Graphic desig-ners developed stylistic guidelines for large corporations. These had to be specific enough to control consistency while allowing staff the necessary flexibility to work in various contexts. Requirements for layout, images, typefaces, text settings, and even punctuation were often specified down to the last detail.


The leading American graphic designer Saul Bass (b.1929) went on to do the title graphics and posters for many films. He also designed a ve-riety of logos for corporations including Quaker Oats, AT&T and Exxon. The liberal mood of the late 60s affected the Basle School of Design, bastion of the Swiss/International graphics style. Basle became famous all over again when graphic designer Wolfgang Weinhart (b. 1941) began teaching there in 1968, preaching that one could brake the rules in graphic design.


As a student, Weingart had worked under the influence of Ruder and Hofmann; as a faculty member, however, he taught type differently than his mentors. Weingart began to question the typography of absolute order and cleanness. He wondered if perhaps the international style had become so refined and prevalent throughout the world that it had reached an anemic phase. Rejecting the right angle as an exclusive organizing principle, Wein-gart achieved a joyous and intuitive design with a richness of visual effects.

Raizman, David. in History of Modern Design, 2004

One of the pioneers of corporate design in Europe in the 1960s was F.H.K. Henrion (Germany, 1914-90). He established Henrion Design Interna-tional in London in 1959, and one of the most famous corporate identities was for the Dutch Airline KLM. In France, the graphic design consultan-cy of Roger Excoffon (France, 1910-83), called U&O, had several corpora-te design successes founded on Excoffon’s specialism in typography; his design work for Air France in the 1960s was especially praisied for its clarity and elegance.

Corporate identity was generally perceived in Europe and the USA as an analytical exercise. Accordingly, many books appeared during the 60s on the theory and practice of the new graphic “science”. [...] One succesful exemple of a total redesign of a corporate image (wich went hand-in-hand with a reorganization of working practices) occured in the early 1980s with British Airways. The corporate identity was carried out by Landor Associa-tes, a Sam Francisco company.[...] One of the most controversial uses of corporate identity analisys has been in Britain where, in 1988, Wolff Olins was commissioned by London’s Metropolitan Police Force to look at their public and internal image. [...] Perhaps the most impressive graphic desig-ner at the start of the 1990s is April Greinman (USA, b. 1948). After studying with Wolfgang Weinhart at the Basle School of Design, and working in New York and Philadelphia (1971-76), she moved to Los Angeles.

She has designed for Esprit, the Xerox Corportation and Benetton. Her work with the computer has led her to evolve a new kind of illusory space in two-dimensional graphics, crating the illusion with several of her designs of looking into a glass globe rather than a flat page. She has com-bined Swiss order with the flexibility and inventiveness that micro-compu-ters and their software can provide. She exemplifies how fluid influences and ideas can be in graphic design, for her work combines original vision with collaging techniques, elements of concrete poetry, the surreal and the echoes of Tschichold’s New Typography.


Graphic design played a critical role in shaping societal norms and representing new political and economic orders. Adapting their professio-nal practices and drawing on stylistic innovations from earlier in the cen-tury, graphic designers aligned themselves with an emerging corporate culture. [...] complex, multinational corporations spurred the development of visual identity programs that went far beyond branding products and services. They became a means of making complex organizations seem like a single entity. Not incidentally, the logotypes and other identifying fe-atures of these campaigns did not rely on any particular language but drew on the universal language of graphic design meant to be legible throughout an international networks of communications. Uniformity (conformity) and abstraction were the hallmarks of corporate style.

Graphic designers on both sides of the Atlantic invented their own approaches and signature styles. Yet the “anonymous” International (swiss) style held the most ground, and the massive communications firms and in--house graphic design units that served the ascendant corporate culture tended to efface traces of individual expression. Modernism had become mainstream, losing its political claims and innovative edge in the process.


CORPORATE IDENTITY SYSTEMS

Ruder joined the faculty of the Allegemeine Gewerbeschule (Basel School of Design) as the typography teacher and called upon his students to strike a correct balance between form and function. He taught that type loses its purpo-se when it loses its communicative meaning: therefore, legibility and readability are dominant concerns. [...] Ruder advocated systematic overall design and the use of a complex grid structure to bring all elements—typography, photography, illustration, diagrams, and charts—into harmony with each other while allowing for design variety. [...] His methodology of typographic design and education was asented in his 1967 book, Typography: A Manual of Design, which had a worldwide influence.

In 1947 Armin Hofmann (b. 1920) began teaching graphic design at the Basel School of Design, after completing his education in Zurich. [...] Hofmann seeks a dynamic harmony where all the parts of a design are unified. He sees the relationship of contrasting elements as the means of breathing life into visual design. [...] Hofmann works in diverse areas, including posters, advertising, and logo design.[...] n 1965 Hofmann published Graphic Design Manual, a book that pre-sonted his application of elemental design principles to graphic design.

Swiss design began to coalesce into a unified international movement when the journal New Graphic Design began publication in 1959. The editors were Vivarelli and three other Zurich designers who played a major role in the evolution of the International Typographic Style: Richard P. Lohse (1902-88), Jo-sef Muller-Brockmann (1914-96), and Hans Neuburg (1904-83). This trilingual pe-riodical presented the philosophy and accomplishments of the Swiss movement to an international audience.


INTERNATIONAL STYLE

WALTER HERDEG ANTON STANKWOSKI RUDOLPH DEHARAK MASARU KATSUMI SAUL BASS WOLFGANG WEINGART APRIL GREINMANSIEGFRIED ODERMATT

MASARU KATSUMI

PICTOGRAMS FOR THE 1964 TOKYO OLYMPICS, 1964

APRIL GREIMAN

“DOES IT MAKE SENSE?” DESIGN QUARTERLY 1986

D U R I N G T H E P O S T - W O R L D W A R I I E R A T H E

S P I R I T O F I N T E R N A T I O N A L I S M G R E W . I N C R E -

A S E D T R A D E E N A B L E D M U L T I N A T I O N A L C O R -

P O R A T I O N S T O O P E R A T E I N O V E R A H U N D R E D

D I F F E R E N T C O U N T R I E S . P H I L I P P M E G G S

During the 1950s a design movement emerged from Switzerland and Ger-many that has been called Swiss design or, more appropriately, the International Typographic Style. The objective clarity of this design movement won converts throughout the world. It remained a major force for over two decades, and its influence continues into the 1990s.

The visual characteristics of this international style include a visual 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 exag-gerated claims of much propaganda and commercial advertising: and the use of sans-serif typography set in a flush-left and ragged-right margin configuration. The initiators of this movement believed sans-serif typography expresses the spirit of a progressive age and that mathematical grids are the most legible and harmonious means for structuring information. More important than the visual appearance of this work is the attitude developed by its early pioneers about their profession. These trailblazers defined design as a socially useful and impor-tant activity. Personal expression and eccentric solutions were rejected while a more universal and scientific approach to design problem solving was embraced. In this paradigm, the designer defines his or her role not as an artist but as an objective conduit for spread-ing important information between components of society. Achieving clarity and order is the ideal.

THE TWO YEARS 1958 AND 1959 SAW THE MODER-

NISTS REALIZE THEIR AMBITIONS: THEY ESTABLISHED

A STYLE AND A POINT OF VIEW WHICH THEY LABELLED

‘CONSTRUCTIVE’, OR ‘NEUE GRAFIK’ (NEW GRAPHIC

DESIGN), AND THIS WAS NOW IDENTIFIED ABROAD AS

‘SWISS GRAPHIC DESIGN’. RICHARD HOLLIS

#1

W U N D E R B A R E

E K L E K T I S C H E N

First Issue WENeue Grafik DesignInternational StyleCorporate Identity SystemsEcletic Gallery

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A A R O N B U R N S 19 6 8

FEBRUARY 15Collection issue # 1426,99!

W H AT I S N E W I N T H I S N E W A R T I S I T S A L M O S T M AT H E M AT I C A L C L A R I T Y.

E D I T O R I A L N E U E G R A F I K N O 1 , 19 6 8

ECLECTIC GALLERY

CARLO L.VIVARELLI

NEUE GRAFIK, OVOMALTINE, no.4, 1956

JAN TSCHICHOLD

PAGES FROM TYPOGRAPHISCHE GESTALTUNG, 1955

HANS NEUBERG

PAGES FROM NEW GRAPHIC DESIGN, 1962

EMIL RUDER

BOOK JACKET, ANTHOLOGY OF DADA POETRY, in TYPOGRAPHY: A MANUAL OF DESIGN, 1967

KARL GERSTNER & MARKUS KUTTER

DIE NEUE GRAPHIK PUBLICATION, 1959

ERNST KELLER

POSTER FOR REITBURG MUSEUM, 1952

MAX BILL

ALLIANZ POSTERS, KUNSTHAUS ZURICH, 1947

MAX HUBER

EXHIBITION DESIGN POSTER, 1948

MAX BILL

BOOK COVER, USE OF AKZIDENZ GROTESK, 1942

ARMIN HOFMANN

GISELLE, BASLER FREILICHTSPIELE, 1959

ANTON STANKOWSKI

TRADEMARK FOR STANDARD ELEKTRIK LORENZ AG, 1953.

ANTON STANKWOSKI

COVER FOR BERLIN LAYOUT, 1971

PAUL RAND

IBM LOGO, 1956

WALTER HERDEG

GRAPHIS MAGAZINE, ZURICH, 1944

SIEGFRIED ODERMATT

SCHELLING BULLETIN, 1963

SAUL BASS

QUAKER OATS LOGO, 1969

WOLFGANG WEINGART

GRAPHIS COLLECTION, 1962

RUDOLPH DEHARAK

ALBUM COVER FOR SOUNDS OF THE ALPS, 1961

SIEGFRIED ODERMATT

ADVERTISEMENT FOR APOTHEKE SAMMOT PRIVATE-LABEL MEDICINE, 1957.

Documents

CORPORATE IDENTITY SYSTEMS · pean typographical design was Paul Rand (b. 1914), who began his career in 1937 as art director os Esquire and Apparel Art Magazines. Between 1941 and