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Karl Gerstner: Designing Programmes - Lars Müller Publishers /
Designed by Karl Gerstner
‘To describe the problem is part of the solution’
When the book appeared in the 1960s, technology was at a turning point. Karl Gerstner wrote at the moment when the machine age was joined by the electronic. He refers to the past -examples of his own work, predecessors and colleagues- and he addresses the future. And the future of the 1960s is now our present…
Computers changed the way we live and the way we think. But a mathematical tendency, an interest in repetition and permutation was evident early in Gerstner’s career: in the mid-1950s he was using simple mathematical and geometrical configurations as the basis of artworks…
And he was already suggesting the idea of ‘programmes’…
This book is not a manual. It doesn’t tell you how to do it, but how art and design can be considered as the imaginative use of a rational process.
The Most Beautiful Swiss Books 2008: The present issue - Swiss Federal Office of Culture /
Designed by Laurenz Brunner
The most beautiful Swiss books competition was established to promote and reward top-quality book design in Switzerland. A catalogue of the prize-winning books is published, featuring the jury reviews and essays on current conditions in the practice of book design. In addition, two exhibitions are mounted annually at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich and at mudac Musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains in Lausanne, while the books are also presented in several smaller exhibitions abroad. Catalogue and exhibitions not only lend the award greater visibility, they also promote the exchange of ideas among designers, printers and publishers…
The competition has in fact become a seismograph of current trends and tendencies in contemporary book design and production, while also looking back on a substantial and significant history…
The theme of this year’s catalogue is the present, since it forms the second in the trilogy ‘Past/Present/Future’, planned and designed by Laurenz Brunner and Tan Wälchli. By focusing on theoretical and practical aspects of book design, the publication is the outcome of a selection procedure concerned with questions of aesthetics and production. The catalogue is divided into three sections. The ‘interview’, the ‘essay’ & the ‘jury reviews’.
Designing books: practice and theory - Hyphen Press 2003 /
Designed by Jost Hochuli
A vastly experienced Swiss book-designer explains his trade with plentiful illustrations of designed books. Two complementary components are added: an essay by Jost Hochuli on some dogmas of typography, and arguing for an attitude of critical openness of mind; and reproduction of books designed by Hochuli himself, with analytical captions by Robin Kinross.
Typeface as Program - JRP Ringier & ECAL 2009 /
Designed by Paradise [David Keshavjee & Julien Tavelli]
This publication continues the ECAL design series initiated with ‘ECAL Graphic Design’ and ‘ECAL Typography.’ The project began with a simple question: is there such thing as a computer program capable of taking over the routine tasks of letter design?
Design graphique/Graphic Design/Grafik Design - ECAL 2004 /
Designed by Norm [Dimitri Bruni & Manuel Krebs]
Won the “most beautiful swiss books 2004” prize.
We make fonts - ECAL 2006 /
Designed by Régis Tosetti & Körner Union
Type we can make - ECAL /
Designed by Gilles Gavillet & François Rappo - 2010
With their ‘International Typographic Style’ - defined by its clean lines and asymmetric layouts - the Swiss blazed a trail in the world of graphic design in the 1950s. Now a new generation is having its turn in the spotlight, thanks to an exhibition curated by Lausanne design school, Ecal, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
‘Types We Can Make’ at MIT Museum’s Compton Gallery presents a selection of modern Swiss typography from the likes of Cornel Windlin (former art editor for The Face magazine) and Dimitri Bruni and Manuel Krebs of NORM (regular collaborators with the Tate Modern and the Museum for Design Zurich). Together they pay homage to their country’s long typographic tradition, but challenge, subvert and play with it simultaneously, using both digital and traditional design tools and bold creative strokes.
The selection shows off the wide palette of type design emerging from Switzerland today. This catalogue is available at ECAL (CHF 35).
Jost Hochuli Part 1, Bookdesign from St. Gallen
Jost Hochuli Part 2, Bookdesign from St. Gallen
Printed Matter, Mainly Books - Verlag Niggli AG 2002 /
Designed by Jost Hochuli
Die Stadt als offenes System - Birkhäuser 1974 /
Designed by Hans-Rudolf Lutz
“The city as an open system”
This book is about urban development, published by architect Also Henggeler and art critic Peter F. Althaus in cooperation with the ETH in Zürich, the swiss “federal institute of technology”.
This 1974 book is a striking example of modernist swiss typography that was designed after the “classic” 1940s-1960s era the typographer and graphic designer Hans-Rudolf Lutz (1939-1998) studied at the Basel school of design (with Emil Ruder) and later became a teacher at the design schools of Zürich and Luzern.
This book won a “Most Beautiful Swiss Books” award.
