Monday 16 September 2013

SWISSTED

swissted
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swissted is an ongoing project by graphic designer mike joyce, owner of stereotype design in new york city. drawing from his love of punk rock and swiss modernism, two movements that have (almost) nothing to do with one another, mike has redesigned vintage punk, hardcore, new wave, and indie rock show flyers into international typographic style posters. each design is set in lowercase berthold akzidenz-grotesk medium (not helvetica). every single one of these shows actually happened. the swissted book is finally out from quirk books—get it here!
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Quite an interesting and conceptually strong project here, It's quite similar to what I did last year where I was recreating work in an European or Japanese modernist style, I only recreated two posters though and I feel I can definitely take everything a step further with the Swiss style but it's important to see what's already been done in this area and this is relevant.

The second stage of my research is globalisation and the idea of 'the future of graphic design' in terms of style and collaboration. I really enjoy kind of adopting or merging styles together to apply to a set problem, they're always like puzzles to fill and very enjoyable and I feel conceptually strong and interesting. Literally seeing theory in action.

This is already a strong and conceptually strong project so I now know what's already been done and what to somewhat avoid with my own design work.




Analysing these posters its also interesting to pinpoint characterists the designer considers to be the Swiss/International style of graphic design which he's put in place.


One criticism I have with projects like these is it's simple and minimalist for the sake of being minimalist, they're music posters and I don't think even the original masters of Swiss design would have stripped down a Pink Floyd poster as how these are, the client and context is also important. BUT as an example of Swiss design in practice it's great. The people who would most want to put these on their wall would be design fans, not music fans.



Notable characteristics
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Top or bottom heavy in terms of shapes and imagery

vertical grid columns in even numbers, multiple of 2. Probably 4 or 8 column. 

Overprinting of shapes and large scale lettering

Abstract imagery largely unrelated to content

Use of line spacing and order of text for hierarchy

No more than 2 pt. sizes in most cases

Akzidenz Grotesk Bold.

Abstract shapes and imagery often simply blocking out of the grid _ adding to the gridlike aesthetic style

Not very cost-effective and traditional print friendly taking into account of coloured stock and spot colours, perhaps real Swiss design used stock and colours more efficiently.

For example, if screenprinting - heatmiser poster would be 5 colours + grey stock.

Large heading often sandwiched between smaller copy

Asymmetric 



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Sources
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http://www.swissted.com/

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