Wolfgang Weingart

Wolfgang Weingart was a German Post modern graphic designer in the 1950-60’s. His artistic career started in the Swiss design style. He contributed immensely in post modernistic graphic design and was the founder of New Wave design. His style adopted an electric and anarchic approach which he applied to his graphic design work.

Influences

Weingart was heavily influenced by the work of Armin Hoffmann and Emil Ruder, two of the major designers during 1950s and 1960s.  These two designers were associated with the International Style, or Swiss typography.  The International Style was based on the Bauhaus movement and used grid systems as the foundation for type and image layout.  Sans serif typefaces were often used due to their practicality for clear and functional communication.

One of the major ideas behind the International Style was the belief that all typography should be "unobtrusive and transparent" in order to clearly communicate the design's message.  While he had been trained under this school of thought, Weingart had no difficulty breaking away from it, and at times, doing completely the opposite within his work. 

Weingart started experimenting with type and breaking of the grid and began pushing to the limits of the qualities of type while still maintaining it's purpose.  While the International Style called for type to be simply functional, Weingart called for typography to be both functional and noteworthy.  Wiengart adopted the impression that a designer should ignore the "traditional" rules of layout and feel free to experiment with how type interacts with the rest of the composition.

Weingart deconstructive approach toward gaphic design principles was a great influence to emerging punk and grunge designers such as Neville Broady in Holland and David carson (Ray Gun magazine) and Jamie Reid.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Weingart

http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=6289

http://www.designhistory.org/PostModern_pages/NewWave.html

The Thames and Hudson

 Dictionary of Graphic design and Designers

1992-98 Thames and Hudson Ltd, London UK

Accessed 24/1/2014 1900 approx