Mit einem Essay von Steven Heller

Armin Hofmann ist eine Pionierfigur des Schweizer Grafik Design. 1946 nahm er seine langjAhrige LehrtAtigkeit an der Basler Gewerbeschule auf und entwickelte - spAter in vitalem Dialog mit Wolfgang Weingart - eine pAdagogische BefAhigung, die hAchste Anerkennung fand die Landschaft des internationalen Grafik Design nachhaltig verAnderte. Poster Collection 07 kann durchaus als lAngst fAllige Monographie Hofmanns Werk verstanden werden. Das Buch enthAlt alle wichtigen Plakate, sowie einige Beispiele seiner bekanntesten SchA1/4ler.

What kind of fashion exists without mass production, without Hollywood and international fashion weeks? In Switzerland, far from the international spotlight and the dictates of the major fashion hubs, small labels, collectives, and young graduates as well as established brands test their potential for greatness. Creative designers take initiative and position themselves in Berlin, join the fashion circus in Paris, or establish clever business models at home in Switzerland. Wild Thing - The Swiss Fashion Scene, published in conjunction with an exhibition at Museum fur Gestaltung Zurich, puts a spotlight on this development and the products resulting from it. The book picks up on current topics - such as minimalism and the questioning of assigned gender identities - that shape designs, design concepts, and processes. Lavishly illustrated, it features looks and creations by important labels, selected outfits, textile inventions, and collection presentations. Together with brief interviews, portraits of individual designers, and text contributions, Wild Thing - The Swiss Fashion Scene is a highly attractive snapshot of Switzerland's creative and vibrant fashion scene. In addition, the book contains links to short print-in-motion videos, which can be watched by pointing a smartphone camera at the corresponding image. The videos offer portraits of designers, interviews with fashion experts, and contributions from fashion schools. Text in English and German.

Under the label Atelier Zanolli, a fantastic world of silk fabrics that were painted and imprinted with patterns, opulently embroidered cushions, colourful pearl creations, as well as finely crafted leather and wood articles, was created between 1905 and 1939 in Zurich. The Zanollis had immigrated from Italy in 1905. Their family business was entirely women-run by mother Antonietta and her daughters Pia, Lea, and Zoe Zanolli. The cultural and stylistic influences manifested in the Zanollis' visually appealing product world range from the avant-garde to a typically Swiss aesthetic forged by a national spirit of defence against the increasingly felt threat that Nazi Germany posed to the country in the 1930s. Driven by a striving for artistic self-realisation, the atelier defied the many economic challenges of the period and carried out many commissions for Zurich's leading textile businesses and department stores. This book traces the history of Atelier Zanolli, places its work in the context of the development of Zurich and the Swiss textile industry in the first half of the 20th century, and for the first time also positions the "Zanolli style" internationally. More than 600 images show the wealth of colours and shapes of the cosmos of textiles and crafted objects, as well as templates, sketches, private photographs, business cards, and letters. The essays illuminate the techniques and work processes used, discuss entire motif families and unique designs, and grant a rare comprehensive insight into the tastes of the time.

This small cultural history is dedicated to the hand as a popular motif in visual communication. The history of posters is rich in variations on the hand. In consumer posters, a hand presents desirable products. But the hand can also take the form of a symbolically charged gesture in the political poster. In cultural posters, the hand then becomes the emblem of the creative individual. Just as versatile as the rhetoric of the hand are its diverse uses as a design element.

Das Atelier der J.R. Geigy AG war Ausgangspunkt einer Sternstunde der Schweizer Grafik der 50er- und 60er-Jahre. Die aufgeschlossene Unternehmenskultur des Basler Chemiekonzerns ermAglichte eine exemplarische Verbindung von Produkt- und Firmenwerbung. Die Werke zeigen eine modernistische Formensprache, ohne dabei einem formelhaften Stil verpflichtet zu sein. Eine bildhafte Symbolik hatte darin ebenso ihren Platz wie das Lernen von der ungegenstAndlichen Kunst, der manche der beteiligten Grafiker nahe standen. Unter der langjAhrigen Leitung von Max Schmid arbeiteten u. a. Roland Aeschlimann, Karl Gerstner, JArg Hamburger, Steff GeissbA1/4hler, Andreas His, Toshihiro Katayama und Nelly Rudin. Auch freischaffende Gestalter wie Michael Engelmann, Gottfried Honegger, Armin Hofmann, Herbert Leupin, Warja Lavater, Numa Rick und Niklaus Stoecklin wurden beauftragt. In den 60er-Jahren orientierte sich das Basler Atelier, insbesondere George Giusti und Fred Troller, an der Entwicklung der Ateliers der Tochterfirmen in den USA und Grossbritannien und setzte vermehrt auf Werbung. Mit dem Geigy Design wird ein bedeutender Schweizer Beitrag zur internationalen Designgeschichte in seiner Konsequenz und EigenstAndigkeit erstmals umfassend vorgestellt.

As a pioneer of modern design, Willy Guhl created world-famous furniture such as the Eternit garden chair or Europe's first plastic shell chair. In the tradition of modernism and against the traditional Heimatstil, after 1945 he developed a holistic design approach oriented to human beings and their needs; functionality and reduction to the essential characterize his everyday objects. In collaboration with Swiss companies such as Dietiker, Eternit and Aebi, Willy Guhl designed seating furniture, planters and mowing machines. Willy Guhl's designs, his teaching methods and his image archive bear witness to the innovations of the booming design industry of the post-war period and the changing professional image of the industrial designer. As a teacher and later head of the class for interior and product design at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts from 1941 to 1980, Willy Guhl influenced generations of Swiss designers, including Robert Haussmann, Kurt Thut and Andreas Christen. The trained carpenter and interior designer passed on his design knowledge "hands-on," with illustrative objects, by model making and storytelling. This first comprehensive monograph illuminates Willy Guhl's legacy in the context of this design and teaching practice as well as current theories of the design discipline. As a thematically structured catalog of works, it offers a complete index of all design projects, and illustrates in sketches, plans and photographs his exploratory working method and his passion for material and technology, which is equally evident in the selection of exemplary student works.