Weingart Layout 2.4

TAKE
NOTICE - WEINGART AT THE NERMAN
A LECTURE SERIES BY LEGENDARY TYPE DESIGNER
WOLFGANG WEINGART
Every Friday at 5:00pm
from October 23rd to December 28th, 2018
AttheNermanMuseum
ofContemporaryArt,
J o h n s o n C o u n t y
CommunityCollege
w w w . n e r
m a n m u s e
u m . o r g
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WolfgangWeingart:
T a k e N o t i c e
-By Colin Blunt
In the 1960s, the Swiss
school of design governed the landscape,
and the rules were clear: type should be
clean, type should be legible and type
should be universal. But as they say, rules
were meant to be broken, and there are
few better examples of this in the world
of typography than Wolfgang Weingart.
Although his creative upbringing was in
the Swiss Style, he didn’t simply accept
it’s methodology at face value. He questioned,
dissected and realized that there
was more to be explored. By rejecting the
grid-based model of design and rebelling
against the sanctity of legibility, he inadvertently
created a new genre - “New Wave”
or “Swiss Punk” which would go on to inspire
countless other designers and helped
rescue the art of typography from what he
called “The Threshold of Stagnation.” 1 4
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It was in the Basel School’s workshops that he began to reexamine
the structures and methods that he had been taught. Through his unconventional
experiments with wide letter spacing, mixing of type sizes and weight,
photographic layering, etc., Wolfgang Weingart began to dissolve the authority
of the International Style and create a new visual language all his own.
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By 1965, Weingart’s irreverence for Swiss Typography had begun
to jeopardize his relationship to the Basel school 4 . In order to not be
expelled, he agreed to commit himself to a yearlong independent study
at Emil Ruder’s request. The resulting studies of the letter “M” would become
a hallmark of his early work, exemplary of many of the qualities that
would endure throughout his career and make his body of work so influential.
He described his process as “similar to working on a puzzle”
- cutting, pasting, rearranging the letter M in as many different ways as
he could think of in search of visual relationships within the letterform.

“W
eingart’s innate
understanding
of the limitations of
p e r p e n d i c u l a r
composition . . . coupled
with the strict discipline of
his apprenticeship and his
inherently
rebellious
nature, drove him
i n e x o r a b l y
to pursue a more
experimental
approach”
- Philip Burton
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eingart
realizes his publications or posters
from beginning to end
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- W W
1) Armstrong, Helen. Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field. Princeton Architectural Press, 2009, 77.
2) Burton, Philip. “Wolfgang Weingart.” AIGA | the Professional Association for Design, 2013, www.aiga.org/medalist-wolfgang-weingart.
3) Schwemer-Scheddin, Yvonne. “Eye Magazine.” Eye Magazine | Feature | Anatomy of a Magazine, 1991,
www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-wolfgang-weingart.
4) Weingart, Wolfgang. Typography - My Way to Typography. Lars Muller Publishers, 2014, 102, 233, 112.
5) Heller, Steven. Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design. Allworth Press, 2004, 257.
6) Eskilson, Stephen J. Graphic Design: a New History. Yale University Press, 2012, 352.
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1
“Letter M, 1965”. Like other Weingart projects, the M studies (which he began in 1962)
systematically evolved over a period of years as he experimented with new concepts and
te c h n i q u e s . T h i s p a r t i c u l a r s t u d y h i g h l i g h t s h i s e ff o r t s to p u s h t h e l i m i t s o f l e g i b i i l i t y.
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“Round Composition, 1962”. In 1962, while picking up 6-point semi-bold Akzidenz-
Grotesk after he accidentally dropped the typecase, Weingart was inspired to create round
abstract compositions by randomly arranging the sorts, or individual type pieces, sometimes
upside-down, in a cardboard ring, then inking and printing them. These studies demonstrated
his ability to see type as abstract forms, as opposed to simply conveying a message.
3
“The Swiss Poster, 1984”. This 1984 poster for an exhibition as the Museum of Design
Basel is an extraordinary example of Weingart’s halftone film collages. His innovative
approach to the usage of different technologies is on full display in this example. In his book
“My Way to Typography”, he explained that he got the inspiration for his depiction of the
Matterhorn by crumpling up a tissue and scanning it.
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“Typography in a New Context, 1973”. In the late 1960s, Weingart started experimening
with unconventional methods of setting text type, which took aim at “the established rules of
modern Swiss typography.” This rebellion against the authority of established and universally
accepted methodologies would become a hallmark of Weingart’s work and ultimately
cemented his status as one of the 20th century’s greatest designers.

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Pg. 3: Source: https://historiadissenyidep.blogspot.com/2015/04/?view=magazine
Pg. 5: Source: http://wsuadvdesf11-petar.blogspot.com/2011/12/mentor.html
Pg. 11: Source: https://medium.com/@Noah_/connecting-history-the-wolfgang-weingart-biography-fafc898cce64
Pg 12: Additional body copy cited from: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/museum-of-design-zurich-unveils-the-weingart-archive/
Pg. 13: Photo 1 - Source: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/museum-of-design-zurich-unveils-the-weingart-archive/
Photo 2 - Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjTsqiK3I7fAhVMlKwKHf-LBf8QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fnynyny%2F2530377900%2Fin%2Fphotostream%2F&psig=AOvVaw2LYKoBSdOzdz9hZomA39em&ust=1544306475636589
Photo 3 - Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjJsYK33I7fAhUF0KwKHVudBxwQjRx6BAg-
BEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F361625045060502214%2F&psig=AOvVaw2CyfxZleU7jp-ZmCg6lXc0&ust=1544306561652744
Photo 4 Source: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/496944140109107713/
All other assets and layout by Colin Blunt
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