In 2007 I was a high-school senior in Columbia, SC. I’d always been deeply interested in art but uncertain about what I wanted to do after high-school. In my final year of school, I spent some time on my own going to my local local public library and browsing books. It was there that I discovered Swiss Graphic Design. The book is a thorough history of the competing and coalescing theories about graphic arts and advertising that emerged in Switzerland in the early 20th century, and it became a touchstone for me to learn about the cultural legacies, emergent theories, and innovations that were consequential in shaping modern thinking and graphic arts. I read the book like a sort of bible, as one does before they’ve gained a better, more personal, knowledge of the subject and compiled the information in it into meticulous lists of people, ideas, and other publications to get to know.
The book inspired me to enroll in a graphic design program at The University of South Carolina with the expectation that I would be doing work like these designers, but I would discover shortly after that the professional world that I’d been introduced to in the book had been drastically changed by digital programs. I realized that I wanted to be working directly with the graphic tools that these designers had– not to advertise pharmaceuticals, oil, plastics, or transportation, but still to engage with the same formal challenges.
All of these tools now belonged in the printmaking studio, so I switched from graphic design and followed my instincts to the place that I thought could face me with the challenges that I needed. Years later, I’m grateful that I made that move that eventually lead me to surface design, but I still look back on this book and the many ideas and people that it introduced me too. It’s well worth the look. I don’t see it anymore as a sacred text but the legacy of an on-going debate about communication. Check out a copy of my original notes below and notice the final page filled with call numbers for the chain of books that I searched for at the time.
