Saturday, 22 February 2014

The International Typographic Style

What is the International Typographic Style (ITS)?

The International Typographic Style (or the Swiss Style) had started in Switzerland and Germany during the 1950s. The objective of this movement was for the clarity of design, and the International Typographic Style had remained to be a major force for over two decades and its continues into the twenty-first century.

The visual characteristics of the ITS includes the unity of design achieved by asymmetrical organisation of the design elements on a mathematical constructed grid. The ITS made use of objective photography and copy the present visual and verbal information in a clear and factual manner, that was free from the exaggerated claims of propaganda and commercial advertising and the use of sans-serif typography set in a flush-left and ragged-right margin configuration. The initiators of this movement believed that the sans-serif typography expresses the spirit of a more progressive age and that mathematical grids are the most legible and harmonious means for structuring information.

The pioneers of the ITS had defined design as a socially useful and an important activity. Personal expression and eccentric solutions were rejected, while a more universal and scientific approach to design problem solving had been embraced. In this paradigm designers defined their roles not as artists but as objective conduits for spreading important information between components of society.

Exercise 1. Logos that represent the principles of the International Typographic Style.

In our current day and age there are essential aspects of the ITS that are still present in design some magazine layouts, logo design, and public signage today still make use of a grid system. This is that there can be easy recognised be people universally.

Here we shall view some logos that still hold these principles. Firstly there’s the use of sans-serif type in the logos. Sans-serif type helps give a logo a clean look and it allows for easy readability. It’s not uncommon to find a logo with a serif typeface, but only if it fits the design and reflects the purpose of the service that logo is representing.

Simple graphics or symbols are also used in these logos as they help make the logos easily recognisable with both shape and colour. The colours used in logos can invoke certain feelings in person for example the McDonald’s logo uses yellow on red to grab a viewer’s attention and to invoke the feeling of hunger, thus making them crave food from McDonald’s.














The Superman logo is another good example of how colour is used in logo design. The Superman logo uses red on yellow. The red in the logo can represent strength and confidence, which are the qualities that Superman possesses. The grid system is also applied so that most logos can fit in a square like format, so they can be easily scaled up or down in size for print.

The logos that I like the most are the Cartoon Network; Pick ‘n Pay; Quiksilver; Citroën, and the McDonald’s logos. They follow a clean look and are easily recognisable and memorable. As mentioned earlier there’s use of colour as it can affect the way in which one views the logos. For example, most of these logos make use of the colours: black, red, some contain blue. Red is energising, signifies leadership qualities, determination, strong will, and gives confidence to those who are shy or lack confidence. The colour blue invokes the feelings of trust, honesty, loyalty, and relief.

Image links:


Cartoon Network:







Toyota:

McDonald’s:

No comments:

Post a Comment