Buro Destruct Designer

In very similar style to Norm's Sign Generator, the BD Designer uses a grid based system to generate 'wonderful patterns, logos and colour-combinations'. The tool is a tribute to the famous swiss 60s design. Buro Destruct have also made the BD Designer downloadable to use offline. I will more than likely be returning to the BD Designer and Sign Generator 1.0 later on in my project.

Norm Website

>>> http://norm.to/

Norm's website takes an unconventional approach to user interactivity. Small pop-up windows contain different areas of the site and clicking one link may trigger a reaction of 3 pop-up boxes to appear, which sure can be quite confusing, but also inspiring and unique. They have obviously attempted to explain what their approach to design is all about immediately when you enter the site, without having to read anything. There are two parts of the site in particular that I think work really well and are worth playing with. That is their 'screenshot contest' and my personal favourite the 'Sign-generator 1.0', which also plays a part in their book 'The Things'.
The screenshot contest is a simple drag and drop exercise. We are given a library of 2D and 3D objects that we must arrange into our own composition. We are then asked to crop around the 'playground area' and e-mail the screenshot as a JPEG to Norm. Although the contest is long over now, it is still a nice interactive exercise to have a go at. It can be quite addictive. Some examples of the winning compositions can be seen below. The bottom composition is one of my own.



The 'Sign generator 1.0' is a 9 point grid-based tool that allows us to calculate and generate all possible combinations of a number of lines. It seems complicated to explain but is really easy and fun to use. It reminds me of the Buro Destruct Designer and strong comparisons can definitely be made between the two.

'The Things'

Received Norm's award winning book 'The Things' in the post today and once again (as with Woodtli's book) I am highly impressed with it. Not only is the book a great piece of design work in itself, it also provides pages of inspirational work, which have already started triggering some of my own ideas for the third year. As usual with the Swiss, they have taken massive pride in every aspect of their work and nothing has been done half hearted - just what I love about them. Enjoy these pictures I took of some of the page spreads.

Wolfgang Weingart

Through researching Joseph Muller-Brockmann I fortunately came across another Swiss designer Wolfgang Weingart, and in particular his series of lithographs on typographic process. Immediately I was drawn to these black & white pieces that had such a clean technical aesthetic to them.

"Wolfgang Weingart, born in 1941, was trained as a lead-typesetter. Since 1968 he has taught typography at the Basle School of Design/Switzerland. In the past several years he has also conducted typography workshops at the Yale University Summer Program in Graphic Design/Brissago, Switzerland. His teaching has focused on conventional and photographic experiments with typography.His work has appeared in international design journals and he has received awards from the Swiss Government for his posters and book cover designs. Weingart is a self-taught designer and educator. He is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI)."

Typographic Process. Lithographs
Nr 1. Organized Text Structures. 1974.
Nr 2. From Simple to Complex. 1973.
Nr 3. Calender Text Structures. 1971-1972.
Nr 4. Typographic Signs. 1971-1972.
Nr 5. Typography as (Painting). 1971-1974.

Leonardo Sonnoli (Rimini, Italy)

Although not a Swiss designer, I couldn't help but take notice of Sonnoli's work, which reminded me so much of the Swiss style. I love his type-based replica of the periodic table in particular.

Poster for lecture by Leonardo Sonnoli at the High Institute for Design, Naples / High Institute for Design / Italy / 2000

Interviews

Short interview with Norm
An interview with Leonardo Sonnoli by The 5th Color (April 22, 2005
An interview with Wolfgang Weingart

Swiss GD Motifs & Noted Designers

Motifs: Strong geometric forms, strong and evident use of underlying grid structure, Helvetica, aim of objectivity, standardized systems, abstraction and reduction of form.

Noted Designers:

- Armin Hoffman
- Max Huber
- Herbert Matter
- Josef Muller Brockman
- Siegfried Odermatt and Rosemarie Tissi
- Emil Ruder
- Jan Tschichold
- Carlo Vivarelli
- Wolfgang Weingart
- Successors in the USA: Hans Alleman, Inge Druckrey, Dan Friedman, April Greiman, Vignelli Associates

Josef Müller-Brockmann

"Brockmann is perhaps best-known as graphic designs foremost proponent of grid systems to assist in functional, objective design, which he discussed in detail in his books 'Grid System in Graphic Design' and 'The Graphic Designer and his Design Problems'. The grid system allowed Muller-Brockmann to organize his subject matter to create more effective design, to not be overwhelmed by the seeming chaos and complexity of design decisions."

"All his works were built upon a grid system, and it is interesting that even those designs that appeared free of structure were rigidly organized beneath the surface. The development of the grid was also the main subject of his teaching (he held many lectures and seminars throughout the world) and of his contributions to magazines such as 'New Graphic Design'. In many ways, Müller-Brockmann is the perfect subject to study for a representative understanding of the so-called Swiss Design movement."

Check out the Eye feature 'A conversation with Josef Müller-Brockmann' by Yvonne Schwemer-Scheddin online here

Woodtli: First Impressions

Received Woodtli's book in the post today and my first impressions of it are definitely positive. The book comes in a rather nice cardboard slipcase and the special binding for the book is a nice break from the norm.

The book itself feels and appears like a hefty design manual for some sort of complex machinery - the type of book you would expect to receive in an advanced Design & Technology class. The graphics are highly impressive and personally, I just love to look over and admire each drawing because you know you will have missed something the first time over. Isn't much writing but that is fine by me. It's a great book for inspiration regarding this style of work.

Reading List

Over the Summer I am going to have a lot of time to research my project so it will definitely be worthwhile creating some sort of reading list. I will keep adding to this list over the Summer.

- 'Woodtli' by Martin Woodtli (Paperback - Dec 2001) ***Purchased***

- 'Norm: The Things' by Manuel Krebs & Dimitri Bruni (Paperback - Sep 2002) ***Purchased***

- 'Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style 1920-1965' by Richard Hollis ***Purchased***

- 'Altitude: Contemporary Swiss Graphic Design' by Nicholas Bourquin, R. Klanten, and Christian Mareis ***Purchased***

- 'Armin Hofmann (Poster Collection)' by Steven Heller & Armin Hofmann

- 'Benzin: Young Swiss Graphic Design' by Benzin Young, Michel Fries, and Thomas Bruggisser

- 'Grid Systems in Graphic Design' by Josef Muller-Brockmann (Hardcover - 1996)

- 'Josef Muller-Brockmann' by Kerry William Purcell (Hardcover - Oct 1, 2006)

Have You Seen This Book?

I can't seem to get my hands on this book anywhere and I reckon it could be really useful for my research project. The design on the front cover sums up perfectly what my preferred style of design is all about - attention to detail, visual clarity, precision etc.

Swiss Graphic Design (Hardcover)
by Robert Klanten (Editor), Hendrik Hellige (Editor), Michael Mischler (Editor)

Key Words

As a starting point for the project, it would be useful to list key words and phrases related to the topic. I will keep coming back to add more and eventually I should end up with a nice selection of researched material. The list may seem quite broad at the moment but this should help me narrow down my project to something very specific.

- Swiss Graphic Design
- Joseph Muller-Brockmann
- Norm
- Dimitri Bruni
- Manuel Krebs
- Zurich
- Martin Woodtli
- New Design Scene in Switzerland
- Visual Clarity
- Swiss Modernism
- Architecture
- Buro Destruct Designer
- Geometric Design
- Grid System
- Isometric Art
- Engineering/Technical Drawing

Norm: The Things

Finally managed to purchase the book from the US. Looking forward to reading it - think it will really help me with my new choice of subject matter for the research project.

Norm: The Things (Paperback)
by Manuel Krebs (Author), Dimitri Bruni (Author)

Swiss Graphic Design

I definitely consider myself a technical illustrator always paying great attention to detail and placing emphasis on the visual clarity of a piece of work. While I have been researching areas of interest for this project, one that continues to stand out is Swiss graphic design – in particular the work of two artists, Martin Woodtli & Norm. I have just recently purchased a book by Woodtli to try and get more of an idea about his style of work, although just from the preview in ‘Area’ I am quite excited about it. As with my last two subject choices, it will be worthwhile starting an image bank.

"Swiss graphics grew out of the abstract art and constructivist movements. As a culture the Swiss take pride in precision and high standards of craftsmanship resulting in advancement of printing and typesetting technologies. As modernism swept over Europe in the mid 20th century pride and high-standards of design were embraced at the federal level in Switzerland. Style flowered in post World War II era Switzerland in and by the 1960s developed as the International style and continues today."

>>> http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/styles/p/swiss.htm



Woodtli (Paperback)
by Martin Woodtli (Author)

New Thinking

My research project seems to have taken a number of twists and turns since the brief was set back in January and yet I am still not 100% satisfied with my subject choice at this stage. I suppose this isn't a completely bad thing as I'm learning about each of my previous choices, which so far have been Research Studios and web/interface design. The good thing is I can feel myself getting closer to what I want to achieve. I'm starting what will hopefully be my final brainstorm of ideas on a subject that is a bit more specific than my previous two.

The problem I felt with my last subject (web/interface design) was that it felt outdated and, after having a discussion with my tutor, we got the feeling it would become more of a boring task rather than something I would continue to enjoy researching. I have started looking through a number of books for some inspiration for the project, in particular 'Area' by Phaidon and Brendan Dawes 'Analog In, Digital Out'. A few new ideas for my project are listed below:

- Innovative CD/DVD Packaging;
- In-depth study into CD-ROM/DVD Interfaces;
- Three Dimensional Type;
- Editorial Design (Magazines/Newspapers) Work of Tom Bodkin;
- Swiss Design (Norm/Martin Woodtli et al). Blurring The Boundaries Between Architecture & Graphic Design. <<< I am really liking the look of this idea at the moment.