Posted on Friday, May 30^th 2008 at 17:08

Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970

European graphic design from the early days is a powerful inspiration source for designers all over the world. The new graphic design movement, also known as swiss graphic design or International typographic style that emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity has had a huge impact on all areas of design ever since it was developed in Switzerland in the 50’s.

The typical large, straight typography, sophisticated grid systems and a simple, clear message are all useful ingredients when designing web sites as well. So as a casual and relaxed weekend inspiration pack, I have hand-picked a small collection of 32 great posters and other artwork from the golden ages of european graphic design. These are not all very typical swiss style, but many of the designs presented here are clearly inspired by it, one way or another.

André-Franccois Marescotti

Record case by Joseph Müller-Brockman.

Tele Communicate

Belgian poster from 1962

Citroen 1974

One of the beautiful Citroen graphic designs

Design by Max Schmid

Basel 1959 for geigy.

Wanner AG

De Stijl

DeStijl exhibition poster designed by Almar Mavignier 1964.

Wohnbedarf

After the war ended, a new interest swept modern furniture design on to the international market.

Armin Hofman

Graphic design manual by Armin Hofmann

Die Gute Form

Jauna Gaita

Three beautiful covers from the eastern european magazine Jauna Gaita.

Italsider

1968 Magazine Advertisement, Italy

Film Special

1969 Magazine Advertisement, Milano Itay.

Beethoven

Pediatric Assistant

Citroen Advertising

Geneve 1976

Sports poster designed by J.F. Calame 1976.

Strawinsky

Joseph Müller-Brockman 1955 design in the series for concert posters for the Tonhalle Gesellschaft Zürich.

Musica viva

Another poster by Joseph Müller-Brockman.

NKF

Piet Zwart design, double page, catalog. This was designed before 1950 (1922) but is worth including because of it’s typographic influence.

Union

Graphics for a Swiss bank.

Der Film

Josef Muller-Brockman was one of the great pioneers in the New Graphic Design movement.

Kunstgewerbemuseum

Design by Jorg Hamburger for the Kunstgewerbemusuem, Citroen, Zurich, Switzerland 1967.

Taptoe Delft

Luigi Franci

Grignani

Two beautiful posters by italian designer Franco Grignani

Europameisterschaft 1974

Nona Triennale

swb

Marcel Wyss 1962

25 Responses so far.

At 5:23 pm on May 30th, 2008 , Stephen M. Walker II wrote:

Great post! It’s always nice to see pre-Illustrator design work.

At 12:16 pm on June 2nd, 2008 , Jon Tan wrote:

Good and interesting selection. Armin Hoffmann’s thoughts on poster design from a lecture in 1986 might make interesting reading for anyone intrigued by his black and white keys design.

At 5:43 pm on June 20th, 2008 , milkshake wrote:

Nice selection.
It’s amazing some of it still looks fresh today. Muller-Brockman is always great. Brutal grids FTW!

At 1:48 pm on July 17th, 2008 , http://bestflashwebsites.blogspot.com wrote:

Most of these posters are 50 years old, and they would look too modern for some of my clients!!

At 3:45 pm on July 26th, 2008 , Matthew Hale wrote:

Very nice post, and nice site. I stumbled onto devkick looking for a jquery gallery tool, and now you’re bookmarked. Yay!

At 5:21 am on August 8th, 2008 , Addison Kowalski wrote:

This is what I’m always telling my other designer friends about. Finally a great collection of art. Amazing.

At 6:47 pm on August 8th, 2008 , Justin Miller wrote:

My favorite era. It’s great seeing an article on this powerful direction in design. Utilizing this style can really make for a clean and impacting piece of artwork.

At 3:40 pm on August 12th, 2008 , Anthony Morreale wrote:

This is absolutely incredible. Thanks a lot for digging this up (how did you?).

At 12:21 am on August 27th, 2008 , The Ad Mad wrote:

wow, really inspiring!

Love how subtle some of these are

http://www.theadmad.com

At 6:32 pm on August 27th, 2008 , Modernism, cubism, bauhaus, which one of these is not like the others...? wrote:

> It’s amazing some of it still looks fresh today.

It looks fresh because people are -still- copying it. When will this design style give up and die???? Modernism is so far “post” at this point, that it’s a zombie. Every art school ever teaches this style because it’s so “historically important” but that doesn’t mean we need to bring it back! Even as “inspiration”. This style had its place. Its place was the 1970s. Please for the love of God, leave it there.

At 2:12 am on September 9th, 2008 , Jeff wrote:

Hey,
Great stuff here. I really dig this style and I think there are great uses for it today. The Wohnbedarf is inspiring.

Thanks!

At 6:51 am on September 21st, 2008 , Shane wrote:

Whenever needing inspiration I know where to go. Great collection. Cheers!

At 7:21 pm on September 24th, 2008 , Davo wrote:

Great compilation… inspiring!

PS: Consider to get Akismet for the comment spam situation that you have here.

At 3:14 pm on October 6th, 2008 , Gints wrote:

“Jauna Gaita” is latvian magazine…

11 Trackbacks & Pings:

Trackback at 5:56 pm on June 6th, 2008 by Inspiración: diseño gráfico europeo « Cardumen:: […] Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970 […]
Trackback at 5:33 pm on June 16th, 2008 by links for 2008-06-16 | JeremiahTolbert.com:: […] Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970 : DevKick Blog Crazy stuff. Very dated, but I like it. (tags: design typography inspiration posters) […]
Trackback at 9:37 am on August 10th, 2008 by Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970&:&DevKick Blog | L3AK Magazine:: […] Article Source: Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970&:&DevKick Blog […]
Trackback at 2:26 am on August 18th, 2008 by Readers Pick: 12 Excellent Websites to Follow if You’re into Web Design | [w3b]ndesign:: […] with jQuery, web components/widgets for web designers/developers and inspirational posts such as Graphic Design from 1950-1970. They also have a News feed that shares resources from around the […]
Trackback at 9:39 am on August 21st, 2008 by Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970&:&DevKick Blog - L3AK Magazine:: […] more: Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970&:&DevKick Blog Did you enjoy this article? If yes, then subscribe to my RSS […]
Trackback at 8:41 am on August 26th, 2008 by Los tres de unsimpleblog : especial diseño gráfico | Un simple blog:: […] Ejemplos de diseño europeo desde 1950 haswta 1970. Hay verdaderas joyas en cuanto a diseño se refiere. […]
Trackback at 5:41 pm on August 26th, 2008 by 1950-1970 - DesignersTalk:: […] here. As someone wrote in the comments, it’s great to see what was possible before Illustrator. Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970
Trackback at 1:27 pm on September 15th, 2008 by european graphic design from the 60’s | jacobchills:: […] i stumbled across a cool post on devkick.com about graphic design in europe during 1950-1970. what i find most impressive about this design work is that back then graphic artists didnt have all the fancy tools like macbooks, illustrator, or photoshop which are absolutely essential in today’s design industry. here are a couple of my favorites and you see the rest of the pics and full article here. […]
Trackback at 4:47 pm on September 20th, 2008 by Design without Computers - Inspiration from the 50s-70s - Creattica Daily:: […] Via: DevKick - Design Inspiration, Graphic Design from 1950s-1970s […]
Trackback at 5:09 pm on September 24th, 2008 by Color + Design Blog / Vintage Design: European Graphic Design 1950 - 1970 by COLOURlovers:: […] found this great post at DEVKICK with a nice selection of posters and other artwork from the golden ages (1950-1970) of European […]
Trackback at 2:15 pm on September 26th, 2008 by Monkey Fires Shot » Blog Archive » Artwork from the golden ages of Euro Design (1950-1970):: […] DEVKICK has a killer selection of artwork from the golden ages (1950-1970) of European graphic design. […]

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