WOLFGANG WEINGART

This illustration of Weingart granted the Swiss Poster Award in 1977. The meticulous pictorial and textual layout of this poster reveals Weingart’s eccentric and non- conformist approach to typography. The synthesis of this abstract and chaotic collage summarizes his eager for experimental designs that question the visual standards and laws.

Every year the museums of the city of Basel present the new Art acquisitions of the year and ask Wolfgang Weingart to design the poster. The exhibition was called "Kunstkredit". From 1968 Wolgang Weingart was teaching Typography in the basel Art and Craft school (Schule für Gestaltung) making conferences and seminars on Typography in Europe and in the US. He created his own graphic expression in posters and magazine based on photo-montage, computers works and Typography.

Although he experimented with photo-optical processes, he found that phototypesetting, which was a topical theme at the time, was not a viable alternative for him. He preferred to work by hand and see the marks left by the different materials during the printing process. By getting physically involved in the design and implementation processes, Weingart was better able to control them and react to unexpected circumstances. The unusual technique of overlaying lithographic film opened up a new area of experimentation for him. The material’s transparency made it possible to overlay letters and images.

This granted poster in 1980 by the Swiss Poster Award reflects Weingart’s typographic experimentations deriving from the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic functions of typography. In comparison with the Swiss Typography, based on the syntactic function, with this poster Weingart expresses his interest in extending the graphic qualities of typography.

A poster for the book about Swiss poster collection of Bruno Margadant in Basel in 1983. A great Wolfgang Weingart poster showing a montage of strong symbols of Switzerland as the white cross and the Matterhorn over Zermatt. Wolfgang Weingart is a designer and an instructor at the Schule für Gestaltung in Basel, Switzerland. His unique design nature, led by his typographic explorations, importantly influenced the development of the international arena of typography. As an advocate of the Swiss Style, Weingart is perceived as a pioneer of the “New Wave” or “Swiss Punk Typography”.

Already a trained typesetter before entering the Basel School of Design, the epicenter of Swiss International Style, Weingart was a somewhat precocious student. Training under Armin Hoffmann, Weingart showed so much promise that he was hired back to teach typography after his graduation. He overlapped images, used enlarged half-tone patterns and graphic visual elements. Some in the design community took umbrage to his approach (New Wave), but rather than a rejection of the Swiss style, Weingart saw his work as the next logical progression.