Swiss Graphic Design Histories

Over more than 800 pages and four volumes, Swiss Graphic Design Histories offers a redefinition of Switzerland’s graphic design landscape. Based on extensive research by international scholars of design history and with a collaborative approach, it reaches beyond the usual canon and the well-known epicenters of Basel and Zurich to the Germanophone fathers of what has become famous as the Swiss Style of the 1950s and 1960s.

In three volumes, the book features visual artifacts and archival documents, the majority published here for the first time; extracts and quotes from conversations and interviews with designers who have contributed to defining and shaping Swiss graphic design; and new essays discussing a range of aspects of and new questions about the art of graphic design in this country. The three tomes are linked and indexed through a system of keywords to allow cross-references and navigation between all parts of the work. An additional fourth volume with an index of the keywords, glossary, and bibliography rounds out this long-awaited new survey of graphic design in multilingual Switzerland, shedding new light on previously ignored networks, practices, and discourses.

The book is available as a printed version at Scheidegger & Spiess and is also available in Open Access format: 

Volume 1: Visual Arguments 
Edited by Sandra Bischler, Sarah Klein, Jonas Niedermann, Michael Renner

Volume 2: Multiple Voices 
Edited by Chiara Barbieri, Jonas Berthod, Constance Delamadeleine, Davide Fornari, Sarah Owens

Volume 3: Tempting Terms 
Edited by Ueli Kaufmann, Peter J. Schneemann, Sara Zeller