The story appears on

Page A8

November 27, 2016

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Sunday » Art

Spelling out the best of Swiss graphic art

IF you happened to attend the recent West Bund Art and Design Fair, it was hard to miss a fetching showcase of colorful posters and graphic designs in the west wing of the exhibition hall. A total of 70 graphic design projects in various forms, including posters, books and animated graphics were displayed on huge steel platforms. All of these works were created over the last five years by students at ECAL/University of Art & Design Lausanne in Switzerland.

Likewise the book “ECAL Graphic Design,” which highlights the school’s outstanding student projects, the exhibition had an eye-catching presentation organized by color; with blue, red, green yellow and orange works on one side, and black and white pieces on the other.

“We’d like to try something bold, and see the possibilities,” Alexis Georgacopoulos, the school’s director, told Shanghai Daily. “It all starts with black and white, which are the basics of graphics, and then moves to colors, and then back to black and white.”

Ambassador of Switzerland in China Jean-Jacques de Dardel, who appeared on the exhibition’s opening, said it was “a clever way” of help the public discover Swiss design.

“I myself am a color man; I love colors. When I see colors, my heart and emotions are taken. That compliments very well the rigorous rationale of the pure Swiss design form,” he said. The ambassador described Swiss design as “minimalistic, readable and intellectual,” and added that the presentation exemplified “a good mix of emotions and intellect.”

Starting in the 1950s, Swiss design, especially its typographic styles, became known for its “very precise way of transmitting information,” in the words of Ambassador de Dardel. The typographic style was later adopted by artists and designers around the world, and some typographies, such as the font Helvetica, are still in wide use today.

Supported by Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council, the ECAL exhibition, showcases the evolution of Swiss graphic designs through advanced technologies, and how they can be applied to various media forms.

Typeface oriented posters and books juxtaposed experimental illustrations and animated typeface designs on screens. “Graphics are not just on paper; graphic designs and typefaces now go with many digital platforms,” Georgacopoulos said when talking about how typefaces evolve.

Among the highlights was a typeface designed by Jan Abellan based on a woodcutting method used in timber-joinery architecture. He molded the typeface in concrete to give it a three-dimensional appearance. Changes in the light alter the letters, which vary according to weather and time of day.

“It’s not static, even though the object doesn’t move,” Georgacopoulos said.

“Transvercity” by Yin-Fei Gwen is based on the cultural attraction between the East and West, and explores the search for exoticism through dreams of escape.

Swiss art has always had a crucial influence on China’s art scene. ShanghART, one of Shanghai’s first contemporary art galleries, was founded by the Swiss Lorenze Helbling. Art Basel, one of the world’s leading art biennales, has inspired a number of art fairs around the world, including the Shanghai Biennale which is currently underway.

The Swiss Embassy in China is working on a project to establish a Swiss Art Center in Beijing to deepen artistic exchanges between the two countries, said Ambassdor de Dardel.

“What we are trying to do is to bring in a constant flow of Swiss cultural production; be it music, visual arts, photography or book designs,” he said.

“But we don’t come to show you what we have done, but to tell you what we can do together... to mutually influence each other.”




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend