Design

Most likely the most personal and comprehensive book about the life’s work of Armin Hofmann.

Armin Hofmann has influenced generations of graphic designers around the world with his work and approaches. Far removed from doctrinaire views, he exemplified a professional attitude that was characterized by the idea of reduction, a pragmatic outlook, and a deep sense of responsibility. This publication provides a comprehensive overview of his creative work, his professional ethics, and the principles he developed and applied in his teaching. 

It is structured along three levels: the in-depth examination of Hofmann's work, his biography, and original texts on various aspects of his work. Guest contributions from former students and later renowned graphic designers and typographers, as well as fellow colleagues, paint a very personal picture and illustrate the worldwide influence of his work based on their own pieces. This book was compiled almost exclusively from original sources, in particular from the extensive private archive, enabling a very authentic, profound, and multifaceted immersion into the legacy of Armin Hofmann.

Reflections and practical action for the rapidly evolving discipline of visual communication.

Communication design is undergoing radical changes: an overabundant flood of information, fake news, bots, AI, social media, crude graphic tools on the Internet as well as the speed of processes and increasing pressure to be efficient, coupled with increased competition in the design sector and sometimes precarious working conditions. All of these factors put creatives in the field under pressure, leaving them little time to reflect on their own work. This handbook responds to the current situation by shedding new light on the societal relevance of the discipline in the context of professional practice.

The authors use their extensive expertise, practical work examples, and actionable suggestions to identify what really matters in visual communication. They describe the far-reaching interconnectedness of design with a wide range of issues and deal intensively with the current challenges. The overarching leitmotif is that communication design is always the result of the attitude of its protagonists – this compendium makes clear how their actions influence communication, what values are conveyed, and what our visual world looks like as a result.

The print product performance in German-speaking Europe: a a selection of exceptional results

This publication reviews, documents and comments on the current state-of-the-art of print products: From an anniversary publication to a catalog, from an annual report to a magazine, from a label to corporate type design – and half a dozen other categories.

Print products can not only be visually experienced, they also decisively contribute to brand development and dialog in the digital age, as durable marketing tools, always visible, always loud and indispensable. Effective print design can awaken a range of completely different emotions through its haptic characteristics and tangibility. Convincing print products must be appealing and impressive just by touch. Particular emphasis is placed on a holistic view of all disciplines. This encompasses all steps from planning to processing that are involved in the conception, design and realization of a successful print project.

Amazing discoveries under your feet: The eye-catching design of gully covers

You’ll find them all across the world, from Albania, Argentina and Australia to the United States, the Vatican and Vietnam. And yet maybe you’ve never even noticed them, hiding in plain sight beneath your feet. Manhole covers
have been part of our world for thousands of years – intensely practical,
functional objects, but at the same time featuring an infinite variety of designs,
from austere and minimalist to playful and illustrative. Using a uniform
black-and-white graphic style to precisely recreate manhole covers from 80 countries, this volume provides an insight into the fascinating design language
of these unique objects – and what they reveal about the societies that
produce them.

With poster of the most extraordinary manhole covers!

“Being a graphic designer and type aficionado, I couldn’t help but notice the
enormous variety of manhole cover designs. I wanted to bring that amazing
variety to life in a new way.”
Björn Altmann

What are the underlying reasons for the success or failure of a design manifesto? How can cultural exchange bring new value to the field of graphic design? At the end of the day is the contemporary scene still truly innovative or simply basking in past glories?

Over the course of a residency at a London gallery, Swiss designer Demian Conrad invited an array of graphic designers and typographers past and present to share the anecdotes, stories and scandals that have marked the international design scene over the course of the last century. The result is Who the Hell is Müller-Brockmann?, an examination of the ways in which the Swiss Style influenced British graphic design and vice versa.

This celebration of the ongoing dialogue and collaboration that has existed between the design traditions of these two countries also lays bare the divergences and conflicts that lie beneath the surface, and examines how such things as a typeface or a layout grid can come to have such an enduring impact on a global community and elicit such strong emotions. Each participant was asked to bring a design-related artefact that represents their personal connection with the Swiss Style, all of which are presented in this volume. These images and the dialogues they generate create a bridge between the typographic traditions and practices of Britain and Switzerland.

Contributors: Bruno Maag, Fraser Muggeridge, Freda Sack, Holger Jacobs, Michele Jannuzzi, Richard Hollis, Robin Kinross Sara De Bondt

Almost a quarter of a century after the end of National Socialism in Germany, Otl Aicher was commissioned to design the "cheerful" Olympic Games in Munich 1972. He systematically and scientifically approached this task and liberated visual communication from national pathos by reducing it to the essential in the Bauhaus sense: the use. The manual, completed in 1967, contains a flexible system of colors, forms, and fonts on twenty-two fold-out sheets that enabled Aicher's team and partners to "play freely" and saved "unnecessary preparatory work and time-consuming detailed decisions." The outcome of more than 100 areas of design allowed him to create a wide-ranging identity-forming effect, while also setting new standards in corporate design. This book is a reprint of the original German edition with a booklet added with all texts in English.

Otl Aicher (1922–1991) was an internationally acclaimed graphic designer and educator, renowned for his corporate identity work, visual communication systems, and typography. With concise corporate designs for commercial enterprises such as the Deutsche Lufthansa and as co-founder and rector of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm—an experimental design school in the spirit of the Bauhaus—he achieved a high reputation worldwide.