Thinking Form

André Grürtler

A Swiss typographer, editorial collaborator, and teacher. Most known for his authority on type and type design. For 20 years, he was the editorial collaborator for Typografische Monatsblätter, where he designed numerous typefaces including Unica, as part of ‘Team 77’.

I was drawn the abstracted nature of his typography and how you had to look closely to decipher the letterforms and words. Some seemed to build as your eyes move up or down the page, transforming into something concrete. It was also refreshing to see work in predominantly black and white. Color is a beautiful aspect of design, but there is something to be said for sticking to the basics. 

Horst Hohl

I had a difficult time finding information on Horst Hohl. From what I know, he was a Swiss typographer and teacher who studied at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel. 

Layers, Layres, Layers!  
This reminded me of doing pressure prints in my letterpress class, which made this body of work catch my eye. Seeing them in a series, identifying the numbers as the counted upwards, and recognizing the letterforms became something I searched for once I realized the pattern. At times, the numbers overlapping the letters would form a unique shape or even an additional beginnings of a letter. I enjoyed looking to find a harmonious combination in such an abstract composition. 

Gregory Vines

Is an American graphic designer from Springfield, Massachusetts who teaches in the VisCom Institute, HGK/FHNW in Time Based Media and Imagery. He received his BFA at the Massachusetts School of Art in 1968. In the early 70s, he studied in the advanced class for graphic design at Schule für Gestaltung Basel, and then began teaching in 1978.  

Can I print these as posters and put them in my room? No, seriously.
Also, check out his website. http://www.gpvd.ch/why.html 
You can uncover information as you click on it, but it's been abstracted so much that you aren't entirely sure where you are going.
I must be in a black and white mood, because this is the third designer that I've been drawn to that predominantly produces prints lacking color. Vines's work is unlike the previous designers, because it feels more like typography is integrated into imagery and something greater and more complex, rather than containing only typography. His work feels like you are jumping into a different world entirely. One made from the imagination, but also stems from reality. Altering perception forces you to really absorb the information on the page, and when you do, you notice typography is subtly sprinkled in each composition. 

Roman Cieślewicz

A Polish graphic designer and photographer that attended the School of Artistic Industry, and went on to work for Vogue, Elle, and Mafia. He also taught at  l'Ecole Superieure d'Arts Graphiques (ESAG) in Paris.

Here's some color. And some weirdness, but it's a weirdness that I'm intrigued by. All the colors he uses are so vibrant, that you can't help but gravitate toward it. In many of his posers, the dark spaces feel like a respite from the rest of the composition. The typography is simple and sparing, which with the strangeness of his work, feels appropriate for the balance of the composition.

Bruno Monguzzi

A Swiss graphic designer that attended school at Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Geneva. He also studied gestault psychology, photography, and typography at Saint Martin's School of Art and the London College of Printing. After working in London, Monguzzi moved to Milan to join the Studio Boggeri – at the time the leading design and advertising agency in Italy. Later, he joined the Charles Gagnon and James Volkus office in Montreal, to help design nine pavilions for Expo 67. 

His work is very geometric and clean, and each piece has a simple, almost primary color palette of a few colors with black and white. Even though there is a lot going on in most of his posters, they still find space to breathe. He does a stunning job with finding and creating white space, even where there is a lot of content on the page. 

 

Will Burton

A German designer from Cologne is known for interrelating science with design. He's worked for Fortune Magazine, taught at the Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design, and created exhibits for IBM, Eastman Kodak, the Smithsonian, Mead Paper, Union Carbide, Herman Miller Furniture, and the United States Information Agency. 

"The creative person who can find himself or herself in this expanding universe is not only fortunate but indispensible."

Burton's work, since it relates so closely with science, feel undeniably organic. There is a flow and a direction to each of his designs and a vast understanding of color, patterns, and space. Some of his work falls on the side of bizarre, but most feel like them derive from something natural and familiar. It's interesting that he's also able to create patterns out of concrete items. His piece with the different kinds of eggs really caught my eye. The pattern formed by the different eggs, as well as the patterns on each shell, combine to make something unique out of something that is naturally, very normal.