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book (design) story #567

(unknown) :
im auto durch die schweiz

schweizerische verkehrszentrale, zürich, 1935
size: 18 x 12 cm
designer: herbert matter (cover), paul renner (inner pages)

this tourist brochure "through switzerland by car" belongs to the series shown in the last few stories, although the cover design is slightly different – ...

... a beautiful example of herbert matter's (1907-1984) witty photomontage style, printed in blue and sepia, ...

... while the inner pages are printed in black only.

paul renner (1878-1956) reproduced some of these spreads in his 1939 typography book ...

... as examples of his own work.

renner used mostly sansserif type, with an occasional headline in a contrasting script (bauer's "quick" by howard a. trafton, 1933).

among the credited photographers are well-known names such as gaberell, meerkämper, spreng, steiner and tuggener.

below a photo of italian car racing legend tazio nuvolari with the headline "switzerland, the land of automobile races" ...

renner praised matter's work in the aforementioned book: ...

... "those who are photographers themselves will work more naturally. if they are able to make their own enlargement prints and to use the airbrush (aerograph), they will produce the final artwork for halftone plates themselves (...) by applying smooth gradation to white and combining cut-outs of different prints. there are very interesting examples of such work by herbert bayer (and) the swiss herbert matter, now working in america, who designed very fine covers, posters and brochures for the swiss tourist propaganda."