Graphic Arts Research Project Summary

Title: Neue Graphik and the development of the international typographic style

Neue Graphic or more commonly the Swiss Style first emerged in the 1950's and also became known as The International Typographic Style due to its heavy reliance on typographic elements. The style gained international recognition and remained strong up until the 1970's when its popularity decreased as more graphic designers began to favour New Wave and Postmodernist methods.

I appriciate the simplicity of this style and its use of clean, nuetral typefaces. During this project i would like to explore the processes and methods behind this style of work and also looking at it's role in graphic design. Looking at the impact it created in graphic design both when it began and today. I want to research into how the Swiss Style spread and influenced the rest of the world and became internationally respected. By looking into magazines produced at the time such as Graphis and Neue Graphik and how they helped propgate the the Swiss style.

I intend to examine the modernt typographic grid and how it aided in the look of the Swiss style and enabled the graphic designer to gain better control over the outcome of their work. I am to find out the advantages and disadvantages of grid systems, and whether sticking to such rules and rigid struce can stifle the graphic designers personal expression and allow for little input of personality.

I want to look at why sans-serif fonts were used and its role in popularising fonts such as Helvetica and Univers. Also looking at the ways in which Swiss designers began to present copy and imagery in thier posters and magazines, imparticularly thier choice of photography over hand-drawn or painted imagery. Also analysing the relationships between photographs and type (typo-photo) and how photography reinforced the idea rather than just acting as decoration. I will examine their use of white space in composition.

I want to look at the kaey aspects of this style, examining page layout, posters, advertising examples and making references to designers that were key in implimenting new methods and a creating unique style

The Grid

The International Typographic Style brought with it the first usage of grid systems used by graphic designers to organise their content into an underlying mathematical structure. This grid helped the Swiss to produce a unique style which encompassed simplicity, clean typography and elegance.

Jan Tschichold's Die Neue Typographie was a modernist manifesto where he advocated the use of only sans-serif fonts and explored the use of the grid to aid the graphic designer and to help them control the outcome of their compositions.

















Above: Van de Graaf canon, a system used in book design to achieve good proportions, this was made popular by The Form of the Book by Jan Tschichold.
















Above: The diagram shows the proportions in a medieval manuscript. Jan Tschichold: "Page proportions 2:3. Margin proportions 1:1:2:3. Text area proportioned in the Golden Section."

The Modern Grid

After the second World War graphic designers who were key in the development of the Swiss style such as Emil Ruder, Max Bill and Josef Muller-Brockmann started to experiment with grids as a reaction to the layout construction of the time. They were heavily influenced by the work of Jan Tschichold and his examination of book layouts. These graphic designers began to develop system that would be flexible enough to allow for some freedom and structured enough to give organisation and hierarchy of information. These explorations of page layout led to the appearance of the modern typographic grid, this grid system became a major influence on the layouts produced with the International Typographic Style. A book entitled Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Muller-Brockmann helped to spread the knowledge and usefulness of the modern grid to Europe and eventually North America.

Sans-Serif Fonts

The Swiss style is well known for its preference of sans-serif fonts adopted because of the clean lines, functionality and legibility. After the second world war the Swiss designers moved away from the typefaces used with the Russian constructivist and Bauhaus movements perhaps because of the political connotations that had become associated with them durin the war. Instead they began to use more nuetral typefaces with no political identity much akin to the nuetrality of Switzerland as a country.

Akzidenz Grotesk

The font was released in 1896 by H. Berthold AG type foundry. The typeface shares many similarities to the later Helvetica and Univers however Akzidenz Grotesk had more rounded characters. A project undertook by Gunter Gerhard Lange at Berthold to widen the fonts family produced both condensed and extended wieghts named standard, whilst wanting to expand the range of this font he also wanted to remain true to the original by leaving any imperfections unaltered.

Helvetica

Helvetica was deisgn by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman in 1957. The Haas Typefoundry wanted to create a typeface that would rival Akzid3enz Grotesk in Switzerland. The design was based on that of Akzidenz and was originally released under the title of Neue Haas Grotesk. They wanted to create a font that would be clear and functional that could be used on signage. 1960 saw the font renamed to Helvetica which is Latin for Switzerland. In 1982 a new typeface Arial was released and the similarities between the two are many. Arial was chosen by Microsoft to be the default font on its PCs making people ever more familiar to the imposter. Helvetica rose in popularity along with the Swiss style and is still used today however as its popularity grew some designers began to shun it because of its overuse.

The Swiss Style and the development of The International Typographic Style


The Swiss Style first emerged in the 1950's and also became known as the International Typographic Style due to its reliance on typographic elements. The look of Swiss graphic design became associated with the use of clear, legible typography especially sans-serif often in lowercase form. The most recognised font, even today was born out of this style; Helvetica. The international style was a branch of modernist ideals, and graphic designers began to replace what had been known to work well in the past in favour of new technologies, one of these was the photograph. During the years of the first and second world wars hand drawn illustrations were commonplace in propaganda and advertisements. Post war graphic design saw the introduction of photography into advertising and traditions such as hand painted posters were replaced. Swiss designers saw photography as a way of complimenting the text and re-enforcing an idea (typo-photo) rather than solely decoration. Swiss graphic designers began using geometrical grids and mathematics as the basis of their designs, an influence from Swiss concrete art. These grid systems helped them to organise content efficiently and and produce a structured and simplistic layout.
All of these elements helped these designers to develop a unique style which became recognised internationally for its simplistic, structured approach and its clean use of typography to produce elegant and interesting compositions.