The modernist approach to communication design
‘Modular, grids, structure, rational… heaven. The Swiss Style is: understandable, readable, rational, straightforward, no nonsense, clear, clean, functional, sensible, timeless, and, through its purity of purpose, beautiful.’ — Shaughnessy, A (2014)
To design communication with a modernist approach is to design with the intention of achieving universal clarity in every aspect of that communication. Modernism is graphic communication in its purest form, objective, functional and intentional.
The modernist approach to communication design is largely credited to constructivists of the Soviet Union and the Bauhaus in Germany, however before the school opened its doors in 1919 Frank Pick, the commercial manager of The Underground Group in London, England commissioned the typographer Edward Johnston to create a new sans serif typeface for all signage. The typeface, later named after Johnston is still in use today over 100 years later, a testament to the timelessness of modernist design. In addition to the typeface the world famous underground logo and the simplified tube map designed by Harry Beck in 1933 became instant design classics.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20943525
Ironically the many names and variations of the modernist approach to design including the swiss style, swiss design, die neue graphik, the international typographic style etc. can add confusion, a confusion at odds with modernisms core principles and simplified rational approach. However graphic design itself has several names and definitions and like modernism, may never be universally defined.
Modernism is synonymous with corporate visual identity. Arguably it’s communicative potential has no equal within communication design. The success and international adoption of modernism within identity design was largely due to the influential designers, typographer and educators who established the field in the 1950s. ‘Raymond Loewy (France), Herbert Bayer (Austria), Will Burtin (Germany), Ladislav Sutner (Czechoslovakia) and Americans Paul Rand, Lester Beall, Bradbury Thompson and Alvin Lustig all found clients willing to hire them for their radical and sophisticated approach to visual communication.’ (Shaugnessy, A 2013).
However not all influential graphic designers at the time embraced the Swiss approach. Herb Lubalin (1918-1991) was un-sypathetic towards the Swiss style which he had referred to as “sameness and uniformity’ during a lecture in the mid 1970s. He believed that the ‘Swiss approach to design had no appeal and did not relate to the rank-and-file American.’ (Shaugnessy, A 2013).
In her book about Unimark International (one of the most influential design agencies of the time during the boom years of identity design) Janet Conradi discusses how modernism can often be ‘unfairly discounted as little more than a severely limited visual approach’ and how this attitude ‘seriously underestimates and minimizes modernism’s communicative potential.’ (Conradi, J 2010). An opinion echoed in Stephen Hellers’ book on the life and work of Paul Rand, ‘Yet, since the method was rooted on a principle of strict uniformity, which encouraged conformity, the International Style was alternately praised as bringing order to chaotic environment and criticised for reducing visual communications to predictable formulas.’ (Heller, S 1981). To quote Rand himself ‘There is no counterpart to Swiss design, in terms of something that you can describe, that you can follow, that you can systematically understand? ( Paul Rand 1914-1996).
However the world of communication design has room for multiple opinion and divergent views. To end with a quote from Conradi ‘Modernism remains a legitimate and purposeful voice, but is not-and never has been-the only voice in design.’ (Conradi, J 2010).
Thanks for reading, please take a look at my related articles.
