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

Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970

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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



Designed by MB+Co, Zürich, sometime before 1972.

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



Designed by Grafix Holtman 1976.

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

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25 Responses so far.

Permanent link 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.

Permanent link 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.

Permanent link 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!

Permanent link 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!!

Permanent link 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!

Permanent link 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.

Permanent link 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.

Permanent link 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?).

Permanent link 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

Permanent link 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.

Permanent link 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!

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

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

Permanent link 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.

D.

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

“Jauna Gaita” is latvian magazine…

11 Trackbacks & Pings:

Permanent link Trackback at 5:56 pm on June 6th, 2008 by Inspiración: diseño gráfico europeo « Cardumen:

[…] Design Inspiration: European Graphic Design from 1950-1970 […]

Permanent link 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) […]

Permanent link 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 […]

Permanent link 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 […]

Permanent link 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 […]

Permanent link 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. […]

Permanent link 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

Permanent link 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. […]

Permanent link 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 […]

Permanent link 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 […]

Permanent link 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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