Description

Chronicling an overhaul of the "visual communication system" of Swiss train signage

In 1980, the Swiss Federal Railways contracted one of their country's leading graphic designers, Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914-96), to overhaul the design of their train stations' signage, a project that resulted in a "visual information system" using intuitive pictograms to orient rail passengers, doing so largely without the aid of language.

Müller-Brockmann's manual, expanded in 1992, is a complex, large-scale design project that met its users' needs through its emphatic rationalism and consistency. This reprint in English translation--part of Lars Müller's XX The Century of Print series--makes the manual accessible for the first time to a broader public, and is one of the most significant projects by this legendary designer, well known for his posters and the influential magazine he founded, New Graphic Design (1958-65). This 200-page edition features a transparent PVC jacket, an interview with the contemporary Swiss graphic designer Peter Spalinger and text by curator Andres Janser.