Our publishing house makes no concessions to trends and fashion, except in cases where we subject them to a thoroughgoing analysis. We focus on researching complex subjects, interrogating process and method, documenting historic milestones, and occasionally facilitating insights into exemplary praxis. A long-term collaboration exists between the press and the Museum of Design Zürich and the Department of Design at the Zurich University of the Arts.

Bekannt geworden als Lieferant von Theatertextilien für den Broadway und darüber hinaus, bereitete Maharam in den sechziger Jahren den Weg für den Einsatz technischer Textilien bei der Raumgestaltung und beliefert heutzutage als Marktführer Architekten und Innenarchitekten mit Textilien. Maharam verfolgt einen ganzheitlichen Designansatz, der eine Vielzahl verschiedener Bereiche wie Architektur, Innenarchitektur, Möbel, Mode, Zubehör, grafische und digitale Medien umfasst. Das Maharam Design Studio beaufsichtigt die Bearbeitung einer umfangreichen Textilkollektion, die von Neuauflagen beliebter Stoffe der berühmtesten multidisziplinären Visionäre des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts bis zu Textilprodukten reicht, die gemeinsam mit Vertretern anderer Disziplinen entworfen werden. So unter anderem in Zusammenarbeit mit -Konstantin Grcic, Hella Jongerius, Maira Kalman, Bruce Mau, Jasper Morrison, Nike und Paul Smith. Dieses Werk bietet einen umfassenden Überblick über Firmen-geschichte, kulturelle Bezugspunkte und Designprojekte. Abstrakte Produktanwendungen werden an den «useless objects» von Jasper Morrison gezeigt.
 

What feeds the inspiration of the designer? Observation. In Jasper Morrison’s col-lection of pictures, the icons of design history meet up with the unassuming objects of everyday life, and curious findings with the archetypes of modernism. Every picture tells a story and creates a new one in juxtaposition with its neighbor – without words, in the language of form.

Morrison responds to the arbitrariness of form with simplicity and complexity, poetry and humor in a repertoire of compelling designs. “a world without words” is a school of seeing that addresses designers and consumers alike, who wish to explore the -universe of goods.

With reference to seven concepts, Philippe Délis investigates the mechanisms governing the conception, preparation, and realization of exhibitions planned and implemented by the Atelier Integral Philippe Délis, which is active in the area of scenography and exhibition design. The exhibition designs of Philippe Délis have been much acclaimed for their deployment of the latest information technologies, with video projections and sound installations transforming exhibition spaces and our perceptions of them. With exhibitions in La Villette, in the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the design of Egypt’s Sunken Treasures in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin in 2008, Délis has become one of the best-known scenographers internationally.

Designing the posters for the annual Kieler Woche sailing regatta has developed into one of the most prestigious European design competitions since it started in 1948. Since 1959 only five designers or design practices have been invited to take part in the competition, so that participation as such represents a distinction and has proved a crucial milestone in many designers’ careers. Winners and participants such as Ruedi Baur, Wim Crouwel, Willy Fleckhaus, Jan Lenica, Josef Müller-Brockmann and Odermatt+Tissi are outstanding European designers. The brief has remained unchanged for 60 years, and offers a unique survey of the development of European graphics.

The famous Italian designer Massimo Vignelli allows us a glimpse of his understanding of good design in this book, its rules and criteria. He uses numerous examples to convey applications in practice — from product design via signaletics and graphic design to Corporate Design. By doing this he is making an important manual available to young designers that in its clarity both in terms of subject matter and visually is entirely committed to Vignelli’s modern design.

This publication casts light on the spectrum of the script poster, using consistent reduction to type and without any illustrative or geometrical elements. The script poster enjoyed its first heyday around 1915, with the discovery of the letter as a design element. Starting with examples influenced b the Bauhaus and its successors, the series continues to the present day. Technical developments in the spheres of design and printing also influence visual expression. The contemporary script poster offers a mixture of different trends showing effortless skill in handling different creative approaches.

The publication presents the designs of six internationally renowned bicycle builders whose embrace of the tradition of working in metal brings striking innovation to their craft. Through their manipulation of steel, aluminum and titanium, the builders of Bespoke produce racing bicycles that speed champion athletes to victory, mountain and cyclocross bicycles built to negotiate vertiginous terrain, urban bicycles that stylishly convey commuters, and randonneur bicycles elegantly stripped down for epic journeys. Candid portraits including builder’s inspirations, working methods and bicycles, lavishly photographed in great detail, highlight this exhibition at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design. Bespoke offers a rich and intimate view of objects that sit squarely at the intersection of art, design, craft and performance.

With contributions by Michael Maharam and Sacha White (Vanilla Bicycles)
Photographs by D. James Dee

Includes bicycles by the following builders: Mike Flanigan (A.N.T), Jeff Jones, Dario Pegoretti, Richard Sachs, J. Peter Weigle

The acclaimed Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson developed a sequence of spatial experiments for his Your Chance Encounter exhibition in the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan. His piece challenges visitors to move around and get their bearings, and stimulates them to see the museum as a public space for addressing art and reality critically.

The installations were developed especially for the exhibition. They are arranged in a tight context with the spatial structure of the museum and extend the concept of architecture by the Japanese architecture practice SANAA. Olafur Eliasson does not work only in the museum galleries, but also in the corridors in between and the adjacent courtyards, thus linking the indoor and outdoor areas closely and examining this museum’s unique qualities.

The artist’s book was created in close co-operation with Olafur Eliasson’s studio. Its elaborate design with an extensive pictorial section offers a comprehensive record of the exhibition and an important analysis of this successful artist’s work. An essay by art historian Eve Blau interprets the exhibition in relation to its surroundings and contrasts the experimental approaches of Olafur Eliasson and SANAA, while curator Hiromi Kurosawa introduces the history and context of the museum in Kanazawa.

With texts by Eve Blau, Hiromi Kursawa

“Uncorporate Identity” is an anthology of Metahaven projects, ideas and models. A science fiction book about design, it describes corporate identity beyond certainty, entwined with politics, speculation and information networks. Carved out from the multipolar geopolitical spaces of the early 21st century and the paradoxical leftovers and peripheries of ancient regimes and ruined ideologies, Uncorporate Identity is at once an artistic manifesto for design under globalization and a workbook of essays, narratives and truisms investigating the ambiguous state of identity and branding today. “Uncorporate Identity” is edited by Daniel van der Velden and Vinca Kruk (Metahaven) with Marina Vishmidt and includes contributions by Boris Groys, David Singh Grewal, Vladimir Kolossov, Keller Easterling, Dieter Lesage, China Miéville, Chantal Mouffe, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Bruno Besana, Michael Taussig, Regula Stämpfli, Mihnea Mircan, Mariana Celac, Florian Schneider, Marina Vishmidt and others.

Co-published by Jan van Eyck Academie

Whatever became of the myth of Switzerland? Is Switzerland really a beatific island, or does this “paradise on Earth” betray fault lines? What is connoted by the name “Switzerland”? As displayed in tourism posters, chocolate wrappers, milk cartons, wristwatches, and banknotes, the Swiss image-world reflects the Zeitgeist, disclosing projections and yearnings found throughout society. This publication brings together exemplary advertisements dating from 1900 to the present to form a stimulating visual dialogue. Explored first are the ways in which -Switzerland has appeared in advertising, and secondly, how this land has been transformed into a cohesive image. Illuminated in the context of image strategies and -advertising texts are a range of iconographic types. Coming to light are clichés, images of native life and of foreignness, as well as contradictions and fractures. Readers will encounter the multifaceted spectrum of “Swissness” through approximately 90 posters by important designers and ad agencies including Aebi und Partner, Otto Baumberger, Emil Cardiaux, Hans Falk, Walter Herdeg, Herbert Leupin, Burkhard Mangold, Herbert Matter, Martin Peikert, Emil Schulthess, Stalder und Suter, Niklaus Stoecklin, Ruf Lanz, Carlo Vivarelli, Weber, Hodel, Schmid, and others.

This volume surveys the ways in which our globalized world has manifested itself in design since ca 1970, and the ways in which design has evolved to serve a globalized world. The point of departure is a conception of design which encompasses -architecture, graphics, the media, fashion, product and industrial design, as well as the shaping of the manmade environment and of production processes. The focus is on the formation of global networks in the areas of communication, production, commerce, finance, and mobility. The diverse phenomena of globalization are visualized through film, products, clothing, images, and models by well-known artists such as Armin Linke, Fischli Weiss, Didier Faustino, and Thomas Demand. Alongside the shipping container, an indispensable element of globalization, the presentation provides insights into cultural transfer both in the present day and historically, and presents -globalization in relationship to regionalism as well as to worldwide trends. 

With contributions by Beatriz Colomina, Angeli Sachs, Philip Ursprung, Jeroen van Rooijen

In graphic design, instructions, city planning, and other creative disciplines, complex tasks related to orientation and disorientation are on the rise. “Dis-/Orientation 2” is an academic investigation into phenomena, representations, and stagings of orientation and disorientation. The design research institute Design2context, under the direction of Ruedi Baur, invited academics from various fields to discuss both categories. While the first volume offered a predominantly pictorial treatment of the topic, this one addresses the phenomenon with solidly researched texts. The thematically organized anthology highlights the areas in which the concepts of orientation and disorientation are applied and sets in motion a critical analysis in various fields.

With contributions by Clemens Bellut, Elisabeth Blum, Steffen Bogen, Andres Bosshard, Georg Bringolf, Bernard Cadet, Ella Chmielewska, Christopher Dell, Philippe Gauthier, Andrea Gleiniger, Christoph Hoelscher, Annette Hornbacher, Guillaume Jacques, Stefanie-Vera Kockot, Toni Kotnik, Suzanne Leblanc, Trond Maag, Yana Milev, Frank den Oudsten, Sébastien Proulx, Andre Richter, Denis Rioux, Urs Jakob Ruetschi, Imanuel Schipper, Franz Schultheis, David Skopec, Philipp Teufel, Sébastien Thiery, Claudia Westermann, Hendrik Ziezold, Nils Zurawski

Following the success of “Sleeves of Desire”, a second publication is now being devoted to the cover art of the label ECM, Edition of Contemporary Music, focusing above all on sleeve design from 1996 to the present. Since its founding in 1969, ECM has been dedicated primarily to jazz and contemporary classical music and is a leading international label in both these fields. ECM has also received acclaim for its unique cover designs, which have always been an integral part of its productions. Over the years, the collaboration between Manfred Eicher, the label’s founder and producer, and designers including Barbara Wojirsch, Dieter Rehm and Sascha Kleis has produced an aesthetic of the cover that initiates a dialogue between the photographic image and the music. The search for a cover motif from a storehouse of possible images is presented in a few examples that shed light on how these visual worlds are created and trace their significance for the music. An illustrated catalog of all of ECM’s releases completes this publication.

With contributions by Geoff Andrew, Ketil Bjørnstad, Katharina Epprecht, Lars Müller and Thomas Steinfeld

“White” is not a book about colors. It is rather Kenya Haras attempt to explore the essence of “White”, which he sees as being closely related to the origin of Japanese aesthetics – symbolizing simplicity and subtlety. The central concepts discussed by Kenya Hara in this publication are emptiness and the absolute void. Kenya Hara also sees his work as a designer as a form of communication. Good communication has the distinction of being able to listen to each other, rather than to press one’s opinion onto the opponent. Kenya Hara compares this form of communication with an “empty container”. In visual communication, there are equally signals whose signification is limited, as well as signals or symbols such as the cross or the red circle on the Japanese flag, which – like an “empty container” – permit every signification and do not limit imagination. Not alone the fact that the Japanese character for white forms a radical of the character for emptiness has prompted him the closely associate the color white with emptiness.

This publication studies methods for creating flexible looks for public and cultural institutions. The classic logos normally used by companies are the result of a unique process of compression and abstraction. By contrast, flexible looks do not conceal their diverse components of identity in a logo, forming instead a complex family of symbols from them. In the combination of a basic logo and a family of symbols, the look is in a position to represent the fundamentals (the philosophy of the institution, its program) and the specifics (e.g., temporary exhibitions and events). The author describes the effect and potential of looks and offers the criteria that distinguish fully developed, dynamic looks. Case studies of famous designers such as Karl Gerstner and Ruedi Baur enhance the analysis.

With an essay by Clemens Bellut

Ruedi Baur has chosen seven concepts to describe his conceptual approach: anticipate, question, inscribe, perplex, orient, differentiate, and translate. They serve as the structure of his book and the basis for seven dialogues between him and conversation partners from various disciplines. The practical implementation of these concepts is presented using projects from his Integral studio in Zurich und Paris. Previously unpublished new projects are integrated thematically into the evolution of Baur’s oeuvre. This book captures the conceptual and design constants of, and the fascination in, the work of Ruedi Baur. Five years after the success of Ruedi Baur, Intégral et associés, the author again takes stock and manifests the principles of his design work and attitude.

With contributions by Marco Baschera, Clemens Bellut, Christine Breton,
André Vladimir Heiz, Stefanie-Vera Kockot, Bernhard Stiegler, Sébastien Thiery

Thanks to their social effectiveness, posters have always been an ideal vehicle for addressing global and urgent ethical appeals to the populace. This publication presents international posters since 1980 that urge us to take responsibility for humanity and the planet. While posters designed by artists to serve their own purposes tend to reflect a desire to enlighten and inform, posters for human rights and environmental organizations and relief agencies are direct attempts to stir individuals into action. In recent years, however, commercial enterprises have also discovered social and ecological engagement as a marketing tool with which to cultivate their image. This book illuminates the broad range of visual strategies and the rhetorical communication of social messages in posters. For posters are as varied in their content, form, and expression as are the motivations and intentions of the clients who commission them.

With an essay by Sønke Gau and Katharina Schlieben

The A5 series is intended as a growing archive on graphic design. Each volume introduces outstanding personalities and important themes from the history of international graphic design, with numerous illustrations, essays and interviews. A5 is a cooperation between the labor visuell in the desgin department at the Fachhochschule Düsseldorf and Lars Müller Publishers. Born in 1925 in Nieder-Mois/Schlesien, the graphic artist Hans Hillmann is one of Germany’s most important poster designers and illustrators. With his posters after the Second World War, he was one of the first to be honored with the most important graphic design awards, including the Grand-Prix-Toulouse- Lautrec/Paris. As a professor of graphic design whose teaching career spanned more than thirty years, he had a formative influence on entire generations of designers. His illustrations were used by publishers and magazines (including F.A.Z.-Magazin) for years.

The A5 series is intended as a growing archive on graphic design. Each volume introduces outstanding personalities and important themes from the history of international graphic design, with numerous illustrations, essays and interviews. A5 is a cooperation between the labor visuell in the desgin department at the Fachhochschule Düsseldorf and Lars Müller Publishers. Between 1961 and 1968, the magazine Twen produced a series of LP recordings in collaboration with the Philips record label. During this period, all editions of Twen were accompanied by LPs drawn from the realms of jazz, classical music, radio plays, world music, or pop. For the designs of his record covers, art director Willy Fleckhaus used Concrete Art by Karl Gerstner, Max Bill, and other dedicated graphic designers such as Heinz Edelmann and Günther Kieser. This now forgotten series, comprising around 70 disks, is a masterful instance of the conjunction of music and graphic design. In collaboration with music archives and private collections, this rare series is reunited in its entirety and documented in this publication.

The A5 series is intended as a growing archive on graphic design. Each volume introduces outstanding personalities and important themes from the history of international graphic design, with numerous illustrations, essays and interviews. A5 is a cooperation between the labor visuell in the desgin department at the Fachhochschule Düsseldorf and Lars Müller Publishers. For more than 30 years, designer Celestino Piatti endowed the covers of books published by dtv with a singular look. With more than 6300 covers to his credit, amounting collectively to a total of 200 million volumes, Piatti was one of the most productive designers of all time. Covering the years 1960 to 1990, this volume documents one of the most important chapters of German-language literature.

Unimark International was a firm with global reach, with eleven offices in five different countries. Its use of the most modern design approaches and latest marketing methods quickly made it famous and unrivaled. Its clients were international corporations like Gillette, Jaguar, Ferrero, Knoll International, Olivetti, Pirelli, Ranx Xerox, Unilever, IBM, as well as American Airlines and Ford, for which it created visual corporate identities that are still in use today.

Unimark was known for always using the latest technological innovations and for using computers long before anyone else. With their visual outlook, Unimark designers had a defining influence on our environment; they left an enduring legacy with their practice and their theory. Many Unimark designers have been honored with international awards for their achievements. A distinctive hallmark of Unimark design is the systematic use of the Helvetica typeface for the corporate identity of firms.

The success of Unimark International, which is documented here for the first time, points the way for designers and the marketing sector today.

The design studio of J. R. Geigy AG was the launching pad for one of the great periods of Swiss graphic design, in the 1950s and 1960s. The open-minded corporate culture of the chemical company in Basel combined product and company advertising in an exemplary way. The resulting works reveal a modernist formal idiom without being indebted to a specific, formulaic look. There was room in it for visual symbolism as well as the acquisition of nonrepresentational art, with which some of the graphic designers involved were connected. Under the leadership of Max Schmid for many years, the studio employed Roland Aeschlimann, Karl Gerstner, Jörg Hamburger, Steff Geissbühler, Andreas His, Toshihiro Katayama, and Nelly Rudin, among others. Freelance designers such as Michael Engelmann, Gottfried Honegger, Armin Hofmann, Herbert Leupin, Warja Lavater, Numa Rick, and Niklaus Stoecklin were also used. In the 1960s, the Basel office, most especially George Giusti and Fred Troller, was involved in developing the studios of the subsidiaries in the United States and the United Kingdom, placing more emphasis on advertising. This is the first comprehensive presentation of Geigy design, an important Swiss contribution to the international history of design, in all its determination and independence.

With contributions by Karin Gimmi, Andres Janser, Barbara Junod, R. Roger Remington, Yvonne Zimmermann

The development of modern communication and information technologies like the Internet and globalization have not only changed access and spread of the available knowledge but also the speed of collecting. The author examines collections of knowledge such as archives, encyclopedias, data collections, and libraries that make knowledge accessible worldwide. Who is collecting the world’s knowledge? How is it structured and designed? Who determines the access of knowledge? Designers and researchers from different fields have set standards for the classification and design of complex data collections and thus exerted an enormous influence on how knowledge is communicated. This facilitates knowledge transfer, but it also increases the danger of manipulation. Along with these aspects, the book also explores the possibilities of “universal design” and presents new approaches to visualizing complex information.

World's Fairs and International Exhibitions have always had a political as well as a commercial and cultural context. This was particularly true during the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union. Jack Masey served with the United States Information Agency from 1951 to 1979, for many years as Director of Design. He commissioned numerous American architects and designers including R. Buckminster Fuller, Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Peter Blake, Ivan Chermayeff and Thomas Geismar to design the US presence at major world Expos including Expo '67 in Montreal and Expo '70 in Osaka. This important new book draws on Masey's recollections, recently declassified documents, unpublished memoirs and photographs, interviews with surviving members of U.S. design teams, and others, to detail the significant role played by architects and designers in shaping America's image during the cultural Cold War.

Otto Baumberger (1889–1961) was one of the first Swiss graphic artists to have a career that responds to the occupational title of “poster designer”. However, his desire to be recognized as an artist as well went unfulfilled. Early on, as an employee of Wolfensberger AG in Zurich, he acquired a thorough knowledge of lithographic technique. He designed more than two hundred posters, which helped to modernize the medium. Baumberger was far ahead of his time in recognizing fundamental aspects of consumer goods advertising. Although he did not create an actual style, he always sought the most adequate approach to conveying the message at hand. His original graphic creations led to a reduction bordering on abstraction, in which graphic and textual elements underwent an increasingly potent synthesis. Thus, in its variety, Baumberger’s work embodies and exemplifies the history of Swiss poster art in the first half of the twentieth century, as the painterly artist poster gradually evolved toward graphically oriented corporate design.

With an essay by Martin Heller

Politicians are omnipresent in our society. How they present themselves depends on historical context as well as on the prevailing form of government and cultural environment. Vital components of political work are image building, political advertising, election campaigns, and self-representation, but also the tearing down of one’s opponent. The exchange between politicians and the people is marked by a complex disparity. While politicians seek to rally broad sectors of the population behind their programs, they only engage sporadically in a genuine exchange with individuals. This publication illuminates historical roots, epoch-making election campaigns, recurrent patterns in political public relations, and defining figures such as Lenin, Che Guevara, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Yulia Tymoshenko.

With an essay by Thomas Macho

The book reconsiders the theme of living in a city by exploring new approaches that reveal a different way of integrating projects into the existing city. Due to their scale, extensive built environment, and efforts to grow the city from within, London and Tokyo face similar urban development issues but occupy cultural contexts in which themes of proximity, privacy, community, and public space take on different meaning. The housing projects of Nishizawa and Taylor show how inhabitants can live in a house, and, at the same time, enlarge the scale of their living to the neighbourhood and the city. The book contains statements by Nishizawa and Taylor framing their approaches and ideas, accompanied by images and explanation of their projects and a discussion between them, as well as essays by Giovanna Borasi focusing on the relevance of this topic today, and by Peter Allison framing the architect’s approaches in a historical perspective and within the two cultures.

Designers, graphic artists, architects, and urban planners are now confronted with the tasks of signage, route management, and information and orientation systems. With this book they can profit from a broad view of phenomena related to disorientation– disorientation in scientific disciplines, in our environments. On the one hand, this should make it possible to benefit from attitudes to the topic derived from experience and to move from confusion to visual reflection. On the other, it will enable scholarly disciplines to explore the formation of categories that can move things forward.

The designer Frédéric Dedelley illustrates with eight themes and exemplary projects the path from discovering an image in everyday life, archiving it, and reworking it until is transformed into a new object. The book demonstrates in an entertaining way the heart of design: seeing and perceiving. It teaches how to see other images thanthose shown in the media and encourages readers to set up their own libraries of images to serve as starting material for their projects. The book serves as a source of inspiration and guideline for designers and provides insight into the practices of an experienced designer. A portrait by the journalist and curator Ariana Pradal and a comprehensive catalogue raisonné of Dedelley’s work provides information on the famous designer.

As part of its BMW H2R research project, Studio Olafur Eliasson is preparing a dense publication comprising extensive visual material; excerpts from two seminars held in 2006/2007; and conversations between Olafur Eliasson and a number of distinguished artists and thinkers. In the research project, Eliasson raises questions of formgiving and materiality, mobility, temporality, movement, and renewable energy. In 2005 a BMW H2R hydrogen-powered vehicle was delivered to Studio Olafur Eliasson and then stripped bare of its outer shell. To create a new skin several form studies have been carried out in a temporary geodesic dome, constructed in the yard of the studio. The final surface of the car consists of layers of ice, frozen around two intricate nets, mirrored plates and light. The “Climate car” can only exist in a microclimate with a temperature of minus 6 degrees Celsius or below.

The effective interplay of photography, graphic arts, and typography marks the beginning of modern graphic design. Illuminated here are eight selected approaches that both engage with tradition and consciously distinguish themselves from it in order to achieve fruitful reinterpretations. Tension-filled mixtures of images and text express contemporary trends.

With an essay by Nanni Baltzer

The French designer Pierre Bernard focuses in his work — a comprehensive survey of which is offered here for the first time – on the public domain, on communication between governments and citizens, on notification and orientation in the public realm. A striking example is his concept for the Louvre’s corporate identity in Paris. Bernard is omnipresent in France with his design for the distinctive seal of the French National Parks. Since 1991 Pierre Bernard leads the Atelier de Création Graphique in Paris.

Designed in 1957, the Helvetica font is an icon of swiss graphic design, which was a model of sober, functional communication throughout the world in the 1950s and 60s. The balanced and neutral appearance of Helvetica forgoes a high degree of expressivity – a quality for which it is both criticized and admired. This polarization has helped to gain it unparalleled notoriety. This publication retraces Helvetica’s fifty-year history, compares it to the well-known sans serif fonts of the twentieth century, and examines the phenomenon of its unparalleled spread. The documentation is based on the achievements and archive of Alfred Hoffmann, the former director of the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (type foundry), where, in conjunction with Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, Helvetica was developed. Numerous illustrations show a multitude of ways the font has been used in five decades from a wide variety of fields – from signal design to party flyers.

With contributions by Axel Langer and Indra Kupferschmid 

Located between art and popular culture, combining succinctly abbreviated textual and visual methods, the comic offers the ideal conditions for its appropriation by the poster. Using contemporary examples the exhibition explores the roots of the comic in poster design. The Japanese colored woodcut, Art Nouveau, and Pop Art - each has influenced the comic in its own way. The Russian ROSTA windows of the 1920s were already employing pointed visual narratives to disseminate social content to the masses. Even today, designers employ aspects of the content and form of comics - saturated color, stereotyping, and drastic approaches to drawing and reduction in the vocabulary of facial expressions and gestures to communicate explosive messages. Posters for cultural events reveal a broad diversity of styles and also demonstrate how elements of the idiom of comics have developed a graphic autonomy.

With texts by Pascal Lefèvre and Bettina Richter

The Pars Foundation was founded from the conviction that art and science are both essentially creative processes. Artists begin with an idea that is ultimately expressed in the form of music, images, or words. Scientists begin with a hypothesis, sketch an idea, and then test and describe it. Every year Pars invites artists and scientists to make a contribution to creative thinking. The book on the topic “Ice” demonstrates a variety of different perspectives and ideas by artists and scientists, and functions as a visual and textual introduction.

Karl Gerstner’s work is a milestone in the history of design. Designing Programmes is one of his most important works: in four essays, the author provides a basic introduction to his design methodology and suggests a model for design in the early days of the computer era. The book is especially topical and exciting in the context of current developments in computational design. With many examples from the worlds of graphic and product design, music, architecture, and art,it inspires the reader to seize on the material, develop it further, and integrate it into his or her own work.

Nature has always been a source of inspiration for the design of the human environment, but in recent years this relationship has grown even more intense. “Nature as model” has influenced the most diverse possible concepts and developmental processes and is revealed in a large spectrum of forms and functions. Nature Design brings together projects and objects from design, architecture, landscape architecture, photography, and art that have been inspired by nature to develop complex and innovative works. The protagonists include Werner Aisslinger, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Ross Lovegrove, Olaf Nicolai, Francois Roche, Lars Spuybroek, and Günther Vogt, among others. The book covers the historical and theoretical fundamentals of the themes sea, topography, plants, human beings, animals, scent, and climate. Nature Design is intended to reveal the diversity of possibilities for copying and reinventing nature and to open up new perspectives.

With essays by Barry Bergdoll, Dario Gamboni and Philip Ursprung

Representing a new generation of designers in Japan, Kenya Hara (born 1958) pays tribute to his mentors, using long overlooked Japanese icons and images in much of his work. In Designing Design, he impresses upon the reader the importance of “emptiness” in both the visual and philosophical traditions of Japan, and its application to design, made visible by means of numerous examples from his own work: Hara for instance designed the opening and closing ceremony programs for the Nagano Winter Olympic games 1998. In 2001, he enrolled as a board member for the Japanese label MUJI and has considerably moulded the identity of this successful corporation as communication and design advisor ever since. Kenya Hara, alongside Naoto Fukasawa one of the leading design personalities in Japan, has also called attention to himself with exhibitions such as Re-Design: the Daily products of the 21st Century of 2000.

3rd edition will be available September 2010

In an entertaining and straightforward way, Edo Smitshuijzen’s Signage Design Manual leads the reader step by step through the individual phases of signal design. More than 800 illustrations guide him or her through this demanding process. The combination of wide coverage and precise, detailed information makes this book accessible to a broad spectrum of readers, from information and graphic designers to architects and professionals of every stripe who are involved with signal design on any level. With the publication of Smitshuijzen’s Signage Design Manual, the canon of signaletics finally has its own engaged textbook.

With their atmosphere of sociopolitical ferment, the 1980s also witnessed the appearance of a new aesthetic in Swiss graphic design, influenced by the punk aesthetic and first experiments with the Macintosh. Alternative cultural and political movements consciously seized on new visual identities in order to set themselves apart from established institutions. In constructive conflict with the stylistic rigor of the Swiss Style, young designers discovered innovative forms of visual expression which continue to enrich and enhance the world of graphic design today. With posters from 1980 to 1995, this publication presents a heterogeneous collection of design attitudes that consciously break the rules. Included are works by Peter Bäder, Polly Bertram and Daniel Volkart, Richard Feurer, Roli Fischbacher, Peter Frey, Ralph Schraivogel, Mihaly Varga, Cornel Windlin, Ruedi Wyss, and others.

With an essay by Martin Jaeggi and Peter Schweiger

Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa have compiled 204 everyday objects in search of super normal design: alongside examples of anonymous design, there are design classics like by Jacobsen, Rams, Bill or Noguchi. With products by Newson, Grcic, the Azumis, and the Bouroullecs, it also represents the generation to which Morrison and Fukasawa belong. The phenomenon of the super normal is located, beyond space and time; and point to a future that has long since begun. The super normal is lying exposed before us, it is real and available: Fukasawa and Morrison make it visible for us.

This broad selection of Swiss architecture, graphic design, and design from 1950 to 2006 demonstrates that playful humor and clarity are by no means opposites, but a highly unusual duo of qualities that mingle and interpenetrate. The question addressed by this publication is: are these examples from three professions, various regions and languages, and a period of more than fifty years bound together by a common denominator? No parade of luxury items, but talents and ideas finding material expression and clients with the courage to embrace new “inventions,” are presented.

The editor Jean-Benoît Lévy is obsessed with hands. Not only has he collected, over the years, hundreds of examples backing up his notion of a worldwide system of hand-signs, as a designer and typographer he has also created his own hand alphabet called “H-and-S”. The panoply of hands presented in this publication includes charming curiosities and lay-persons’ creations as well as concepts by professional communicators—confirming that hand signs constitute a global, inter-cultural metalanguage. As a handbook—or “manual”— this publication advances our vision and invites us to observe our own surroundings with a new curiosity and sense of awareness.

This publication sheds light on the era between 1948 and 1970, when the arrival at Milano Centrale train station not only represented a turning point in the lives of certain young Swiss graphic artists but also became a decisive moment for the history of design. Being cosmopolitan had its difficulties, but it richly rewarded many recent graduates of the famous Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich. Supplied with a type of education that was not available in Italy at the time, Swiss graphic artists encountered an optimistic and undogmatic attitude that was inspiring and new. Italy’s path to a widely admired form of visual communication was marked by a profound transalpine dialogue and earned Milan a reputation as a city for which it was worth leaving behind one’s homeland. The publication includes such icons of the history of poster design as Max Huber and Walter Ballmer.

 With an essay by Hans Höger

The name Jasper Morrison stands for simple an enduring form, functional, and doing justice to its materials. He has developed an unmistakable, excitingly modern formal language, and became one of the best-known and most influential European product designers. Jasper Morrison is giving us an insight into his approach and way of working, which he defines as “utilism.” His succinct essays describe the development of individual products from the idea to manufacture. A product list since 1981 completes the lavishly presented selection.

With texts by Jasper Morrison

The publication brings together contemporary posters from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan that demonstrate that a new interest in the poster has been awakened as a result of the economic opening of the mainland. The commercial use of the poster in China hardly differs at all from Western standards. Yet with growing self-confidence, designers are also gaining attention with innovative posters on cultural and nonprofit themes. The striking frequency with which they make writing and typography the main focus of posters is impressive evidence of a desire to become cutting edge by exploring the invaluable wealth of its own culture of writing.

With an essay by Eva Lüdi Kong

This book by acclaimed graphic designer and author Per Mollerup looks for a more precise visual language for what sign designers actually do, which is to show the way. Unfortunately, as Mollerup points out, many designers never master the art of wayshowing themselves. For “wayshowing” relates to “wayfinding” as writing relates to reading and as talking relates to hearing: the purpose of “wayshowing” is to facilitate “wayfinding.” Mollerup examines international sign systems and architectural landmarks in detail with his trademark candour and good humour.

On the outside surveys 8vo’s work from 1984–2001, including Octavo, the international journal of typography and its influence in the emergent typographically-led design movement in the UK and internationally during the late 1980s and through the 1990s. The emphasis is on process: trying to reveal how 8vo’s design got made rather than simply showing finished jobs. A number of hand-made and computer generated stage by stage mock-ups are featured. Written and designed by Mark Holt and Hamish Muir, two of the founding principals of 8vo, the story’s told it how it was—the everyday struggles of working with clients, typesetters, printers, and later on computers. Like many of their contemporaries, 8vo were working during a period of considerable change within the design industry—the book places 8vo’s work within the context of this revolution; from paste-up to desktop.

With additional contributions by Wim Crouwel, Simon Esterson, Friedrich Friedl, Simon Johnston, Ian Noble and Wolfgang Weingart

One of the most innovative French graphic designers, Catherine Zask's posters have the elegance and coherence of DNA, and indeed she works with the building blocks of writing and communication letters. Here, in Poster Collection 12, the series from the Museum of Design Zürich, she allows the letters free rein to be musical, to trigger echoes, to store images, but never unmoors them from their task of providing written communication in an appropriate and comprehensible form. The dialogue with the client and the public is crucially important to Zask: “I make graphics to include the others.” Her work for SCAM (Société Civile des Auteurs Multimédia), the Hippodrome theater in Douai, and the École d'Architecture Paris-Malaquais are evidence of the remarkable clarity and unmistakable individuality of her work.

With an essay by Henri Gaudin and Catherine de Smet

Even after the emergence of clean digital design, graphic artists still like to get their hands dirty. Poster Collection 11: Handmade, the latest in the series from the poster collection of the Zurich Museum für Gestaltung, presents both international and Swiss works whose makers have used their own hands for a variety of reasons — autonomy, spontaneity, independence, or delight in experiment. Contemporary, cutting-edge design arbiters like Stefan Sagmeister and Cornel Windlin show you how it’s done.

With an essay by Claude Lichtenstein

In 1957, Swiss typographer Max Miedinger came up with “Haas Grotesk”. Renamed Helvetica after 1960, this typeface went on to become one of the world’s most used typefaces ever. It embodies the myth of Sachlichkeit, propagated at the time by Swiss Typography. This book sings the praises of this shift-worker and solo entertainer of typefaces, of its forgotten creator and all those who have contributed to its unparalleled international march of triumph over the past forty years. The designs gathered together here in honour of Helvetica have been created by superb designers and anonymous amateurs from all over the world. They present a unique panoply of this icon of modern design. Superb applications are juxtaposed with an anonymous collection of ugly, ingenious, charming, and hair-raising samples of its use. Helvetica is not only the preferred typeface of leading professionals, it is also an all-time favourite among the multitude of codes and signals and commands that enliven urban life.

The Swiss Federal Office of Culture presents the 20 winners of the 2004 national design competition and the prize-winning works, with illustrations and a descriptive essay by the jury, in a publication called Swiss Design 2004: Innovation. The book focuses on innovative aspects of single works by these young designers within a framework of individual interviews.

With contributions by Renate Menzi, Joachim Huber, Sibylle Omlin, Paul Elliman

Scents of the City is a collection of small samples and patterns from a wide range of the public spaces in a city; it is the result of an obsession of many years, an obsession to collect what visually denotes the flavour of a city which is so difficult to describe with words. All too often the smells and flavours of a city are simple, sad, monotonous or uniform; then again they can be overwhelming like a cheap perfume, and in spite of this—or maybe because of it— they are hardly noticed. But sometimes there will be a surprising freshness, a breeze bearing the merest trace of a scent which captivates our senses and turns everyday banality into poetry. The ceaseless search for such fleeting impressions changes the perception, and thus those seemingly dull spots, those non-places of a city which normally receive so little attention gradually turn into spaces full of wonder. These everyday discoveries were collected over a long time and then categorized according to their relationship with each other. The wide range of cities from which the examples were taken is reflected in the use of different languages. Without claiming completeness, this collection represents a pictorial archive documenting two very different kinds of expeditions through large and small cities of the world.

Straightforward photography, a restrained colour scheme, simple texts set in a functional typeface: these are the formal elements the German Graphic Designer Michael Engelmann drew on to create an unmistakable pictorial language for his posters. He came to advertising self-taught, with a background in American advertising practice. 

In the fifties he set about expunging any trace of empty bourgeois enthusiasm from advertising by applying a strictly conceptual working approach. In his posters for Pirelli,The Philadelphia Inquirer, Renault or Roth Händle, images and ideas come together in a way that is as simple as it is compelling, creating signs of great associative force. He made a highly regarded contribution to graphics’ breakthrough into the age of mass communications with wit and a sense of using his esources economically. The present publication brings together numerous osters by this graphic artist, who died in 1966 at the age of only 38.

While people tend to assume that the graphic design world will be brightly colored, this compilation of international posters dating from the last forty years is out to prove that there is an advantage to be hard in working without color.

Morphological investigation of the Poster Collection’s stock has brought to light a surprising variety of approaches where the creative will to exploit the color of the paper and the black of the ink alone is the driving force behind the posters succinct statement. Typical examples come from designers like AG Fronzoni, Werner Jeker, James Victore or Büro Destruct. The work ranges from “coolness” to modernist ascetism, from the political manifesto to poetic abstraction.

With an essay by Lars Müller

Ralph Schraivogel (born 1960 in Zurich) is one of Switzerland’s best-known contemporary poster designers. He made a name for himself very quickly in the early 90s with experimental posters combining classical manual work with computer-assisted design methods. Complex structural patterns and his use of photography make his work visually unmistakable. Interpretative force and reduction to essential content are particular features of his posters. His work has been exhibited in Tokyo, Paris, New York and Warsaw, and has won numerous prizes. This Poster Collection monograph is the first about his work. The book will contain all his posters and provide detailed information about his working methods.

With an essay by Robert Massin

The Federal Office of Culture has developed a new promotion concept for the whole design field of 2002, centred on a desire to provide proactive support and networking. The Federal Design Office promotes young designers by making studio and practical training places available all over the world and offering professional contacts with industry and important design agencies. This publication presents the winners of this year's competition and examines the significance of networks in the young Swiss design scene in various essays. Views from "inside" and "outside" reveal interdisciplinary, local and international links and show how they influence the designers' working methods. The publication is designed by the Zurich design practice Elektrosmog, and is thus impressive evidence in itself of the innovative power of Swiss design.

Poster Collection 07 gathers the most important posters of Armin Hofmann, and shows them – corresponding to his fundamental importance as a graphic design teacher – in a context with works from his most famous students, who continued his methods. After completing an apprenticeship in lithography, Armin Hofmann (born 1920) began teaching his own typographic principles at the Basel School of Design in 1947. He and his colleagues who contributed to the development of Swiss international Style, advocated a belief in absolute and universal graphic expression. Hofmann has also taught at Yale and the Philadelphia Museum School of the Arts. In 1965 he wrote the “Graphic Design Manual”, which is regarded as a fundamental work in the field of modern graphic design and art.

With an essay by Steven Heller

“Typotecture” takes a look at posters from various countries and periods, which share a special feature of typography: the tendency to break out of the two-dimensional space of lettering and establish hybrid links with architecture. Letters, words, or entire sentences form architectural figures, which can be read both as pictures and as words. The playful handling of typography has led to an exhilarating wealth of variations in the history of poster art. Starting with contemporary poster design, the widely divergent strands of development in the architectural treatment of lettering are traced back in time through the twentieth century.

With an essay by Andres Janser

Anticipation occurs in al spheres of life. It complements the physics of reaction with the pro-active quality of the living. Sometimes we humans are aware of anticipation, as we plan. Often, we are not aware of it, as when processes embedded in our body and mind take place before we realize their finality. In tennis, for example, the return of a professional serve can be successful only trough anticipatory mechanisms. Anticipation is the engine driving the stock market. Creativity in art and design are fired by anticipation. This publication casts light above all design problems relating to anticipatory processes. The author Mihai Nadin, teaches Computational Design in Wuppertal/Germany, and has been working on anticipation and its associated themes for many years. Uwe Loesch, the internationally acclaimed designer, designed the book. Buckminster Fuller for example (see Lars Müller Publication “Your Private Sky”, page 42) became famous through visionary projects, that anticipated future developments in housing, mobility and society. In 1956 Buckminster Fuller taught a class in anticipatory design at MIT.

Ever since the AIDS epidemic struck, the health authority’s task of educating the public has gained dramatically in significance. In many countries, the poster as a medium of information was unknown before the advent of AIDS so that a visual vocabulary first had to be developed for an issue saddled with ingrained taboos. A survey of current posters on AIDS prevention, displayed in Asia, the Pacific and Africa, demonstrates that the urgent and imperative success of the posters depends on their being rooted in local traditions. Thus, in AIDS campaigns, posters one again perform their original function as a means of mass communication.

With an essay by Nigel Bailey

Brand? No brand? My-brand! FREITAG bags have been an overwhelming success in the world-wide struggle between the brands. The brothers Freitag’s shoulder bags (Messenger Bag) has become an urban cult product, from Berlin to San Francisco, and from Milan to London. The products originate in an ironic and ecologically critical approach. This shows in the production method, which has been retained after seven years and many thousands bags, and has created unmistakably unique objects: the bags are cut from used lorry tarpaulins and tailor-made on a small scale with used bicycle inner tubes and safety belts. This publication describes the history of the product and asks questions about economic, ecological and sociocultural contexts, expressing the aesthetics of generation that is as vain as it is critical of consumerism, in a wide-ranging piece of documentation.

With a text by Max Küng

With photographs by Jules Spinatsch

The design of Pierre Mendell (1929–2008) is characterised by elements which are missing in large part of contemporary graphic design: pithy impact, communi cative force, poetry and humour. The unfailing topicality and importance of his work shows that visual communication based on idea and context is more durable than those subject to the dictates of electronics. Mendell’s cultural posters and corporate design programs are timelessly contemporary and modern. The publication aims to encourage designers to trust in the power of the idea and of simple forms and to see their work as cultural expression of the wider society.

The publication is a cross-section of the work of one of Europe’s most innovative design studios. This publication brings together the most remarkable results from the past few years, including Corporate Design programmes for a number of European museums, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and abo

Donald Brun (1909 - 1999) was one of the most successful Swiss graphic artists of his days. Brun was the first of a line of designers who thought conceptually and self-confidently within the parameters of the market-place.

With an essay by Jean Charles Giroud

Hors-Sol is a record of poster actions conducted by the fine artists in public spaces from 1961 to today.

With essays by Bettina Richter and André Heiz

As an exhibition venue the Museum of Design Zurich has a outstanding collection of its own posters. As the commissioning agent, the museum has a promoter's understanding.

With an essay by Stuart Bailey

Bruno Munari (1907–1998) is an artist and designer who is very little known north of the Alps, a state of affairs that is almost amusingly disproportionate to his importance. For this reason, this book wants to introduce Munari by looking at some of the questions he asks and some of his approaches. Indeed: anyone who can work as unaffectedly and substantially as Munari really does know how to make the best of things.

A cross-section of a year chosen at random, the poster collection casts its net in its own archive and presents posters from Paris, London, Moscow, New York, Zurich or Milan. They all have only one thing in common: the year in which they were produced. For once history is not seen as a continuous development, but as abroad showplace for simultaneity.

Philippe Apeloig (*1962) has established his reputation in the international poster scene since the end of the 1980s with works of a rare constant quality and an underring sense for what it takes to design a poster. His interrest in the printed word shifted from content to form. He began appreciating letters not only as a medium for expressing thoughts but also as creative materials themselves.

Ivan Chermayeff's collages suggest personalities that grow out of envelopes and stamps, letterheads and labels, pebbels and Polaroids, all magically transformed into eyes, noses, mouths, ears and earrings, hats, and cigarettes. Some are sad, some angry, som ecomic, yet all are engaging and inventive. As Joseph Giovanni writes in this introductory essay, "These are elliptical works that, like puzzles, challenge us to make connections that Chermayeff has made, to bring the gragments into a whole. The wisdom of this wit is that his invention beckons us into our own invention. We are the participants in his creation." For anyone who likes to look beyond the obvious, this book is a source of endless amusements and inspiration." "Collages make it possible for everything to be something else." Ivan Chermayeff

With a preface by Joseph Giovannini

In his illustrated essay, Lars Müller traces the history of “Swiss Graphic Design” from the 1930s to the 1960s. Müller-Brockmann’s posters have
become world famous for their ability to convey information with great visual tension, a sense of drama, and an extreme economy of means.
Müller-Brockmann created a body of work in which timeless principles of visual communication are inscribed.

“Clothing as housing, the shell in which we live and breathe.” That is the credo of the cosmopolitan fashion designer, Christa de Carouge, who has roots in both Geneva and Zurich. Just as no-one changes their home without good reason, Carouge’s timeless creations are designed to last. The materials are of the finest quality, the color is almost always black, occasionally red or white. Silk is her preferred fabric, even for heavy-duty garments. Subtle folds and throws enclose the wearer’s form. No buttons, no hooks. The simplicity of the forms, the precious fabrics, and the life-style and life-sense that go with these are much desired today. And overwhelmingly successful. The architecture expert, Werner Blaser, goes into the background that applies here, and with a sideways glance at Mies van der Rohe’s leaning toward reduction and the sensitive material collages of Le Corbusier, he explores the way in which Christa de Carouge’s philosophy meets a particular need of people today, whose clothes must have identity, and combine comfort with aesthetics. The designer herself finds her own equilibrium and inspiration in travel.

Hundreds of outstanding trademarks have been created by one design firm, Chermayeff & Geismar Inc., New York. Their logos and identity programs for high-profile corporations such as Mobil, Time Warner, Viacom, and Xerox, and for preeminent institutions such as the New York Public Library, Alvin Ailey Dance, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Museum of Modern Art, are instantly recognizable hallmarks of design. TM collects over 200 trademarks created over the 40-year history of the firm, which is led by Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, and Steff Geissbuhler. The variety and vitality of their works is reflexted in this visually rich book, which serves an inspiration for designers as well as a reference to the best in trademark design.

With a preface by Stefan Sagmeister

Keine andere Region weist eine ähnlich hohe Dichte an hochwertigem Grafik Design auf wie die Schweiz. Das traditonell sparsame Schweizer Design macht heute international Furore, weil junge Designer es verstehen, radikale Gestaltungsansätze mit Leichtigkeit und handwerklichem Können und Detailversessenheit zu verbinden. Die oftmals reduzierte Formensprache kommt ausserdem den Anwendungsstandards des Internets entgegen und trägt zum internationalen Erfolg bei. "Benzin" ist eine Bestandesaufnahme der talentiertesten Schweizer Gestalter der jüngeren Generation. Das Buch zeigt auch eindrucksvoll, wie lokale Szenen trotz Globalisierung die Designentwicklungen prägen können. Ein unverzichtbares Kompendium für Grafik Designer und Medieninteressierte.

With a foreword by Martin Heller

Since the 1970s Wolfgang Weingart has exerted a decisive influence on the international development of typography. In the late 1960s he instilled creativity and a desire for experimentation into the ossified Swiss typographical industry and reflected this renewal in his own work. Countless designers have been inspired by his teaching at the Basle School of Design and by his lectures. In Typography Weingart gives an unusual and frank narrative of his early life and development as a designer. For the first time he gives a comprehensive survey of his works over the past forty years, most of which are unknown.

Design professionals of every discipline – architects, product and graphic designers – are confessing to certain difficulties in common: to transform their knowledge and understanding of the ecological, economic, technological and aesthetic parameters  of an enduring contemporary design into the practice of their professions. It is a sentiment echoed by decision-makers in the construction field and other industries. The authors of Transfer present a collection of documentary illustrations and quotations which is both rigorous and stimulating in composition and structure. They have devised a method of making the critical factors of innovative design vividly immediate and usable in practice. transfer=convey: To transfer means to put across. This book offers its audience some approaches to a “grammar of ecology,” conceiving itself as a mean to an end.

A comprehensive analysis of product design based on the "Die gute Form" (Good Design) campaign by the Swiss Werkbund 1952 - 1968

In "Angströms Script", viewers are seduced by montages of varying intensities. Inspired by gentöy intoxicating images, these extraordinary pictures have no purpose, but a great deal of meaning. They sisrupt a safe and familiar world: ordinary things become strange, alien, startling – and beautiful!