Photorealism in Posters - Switzerland
[ Styles from 1940-1949]
After WWII innovative posters featuring photorealistic images of objects and products quickly gained in popularity—specially in Switzerland.
[ Important Facts ]
[ Graphic Designers ]
Donald Brun & Fritz Buhler
[ Design & Geography ]
Switzerland
[ New Design Elements in Layout & Technological Innovations ]
Photography was a big innovation during this time.
There was a quest to develop a neutral, down-to-earth, almost photographic style of illustration, although it was only with the advances of the 1960s that it became possible to reproduce real color photographs in poster formats. Nevertheless there was a hyperrealism in advertising.
The industrial product became a symbolic beacon of hope for change and the future. Just like in today’s world photography is strongly associated with modernity.
Donald Brun
Graphic Designer
Donald Brun was born in Basel in 1909, he worked in advertising under the tutelage of Ernst Keiser, who at the time was teaching calligraphy to graphic design students at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel vocational school.
Donald Brun created countless posters that shaped the history of Swiss graphic design and are now internationally acclaimed.
He went on to teach a great many designers at what later became the school of art and design in Basel.
Fritz Bühler
Graphic Designer
He studied graphic design at the university of fine and applied arts in Berlin, spending time studying in Paris and undertaking practical work,.
He went straight into opening his own studio in 1933. From early on, he combined sensitive design work with a flair for effective advertising.
These traits could also be seen in his poster and advertisement campaign for Reemtsma’s cigarette brand Stuyvesant in the 1950s and 60s. His Union Brikett (1943 and 1948) and Nivea (1948) posters, along with many other works, count among the classics of Swiss poster design.
J. Howard Miller & Norman Rockwell
Graphic Designers
Were the artists who created the images of Rosie the Riveter.
J. Howard Miller
In 1942, Miller created the original image of Rosie the Riveter for a Westinghouse Electric Corporation poster.
The image depicted a woman in a red polka-dot scarf, flexing her bicep, and rolling up her sleeve.
The poster's slogan was "We Can Do It!".
Miller's image was part of a campaign to encourage women to join the workforce during World War II.
Norman Rockwell
In 1943, Rockwell created a version of Rosie the Riveter for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
Rockwell's image depicted a muscular woman in a blue jumpsuit, eating a sandwich and wearing a red bandana in her hair.
Rockwell's image was inspired by Michelangelo's depiction of the prophet Isaiah in the Sistine Chapel.
