wiedler.ch

book (design) story #652

walter strasser:
200 jahre geigy

j.r. geigy a.g., basel, 1958
printer: buri & cie., bern
size: ?? x ?? cm
photographer: rené groebli
designer: therese moll

the year 1958 marked the 200th anniversary of geigy, a swiss chemical company which is now part of novartis.

in the 1950-60s geigy's innovative communications and graphic design department was one of the key institutions to develop and popularise what is now known as "swiss style graphic design".

already in story 83 we came across two geigy anniversary books, designed by karl gerstner.

this one is a smaller, trilingual brochure in the same vein, written by walter strasser (dates?).

i love that cover, with a distorted "geigy egg" logo visible through a flask!

the book design is swiss style epitomized: multi-language, multi-column, grid-based layout, ...

... with sansserif type set unjustified.

this booklet demonstrates how lively a grid-based photo direction can be.

the impressive colour photos are credited to rené groebli (*1927).

the booklet was designed by therese moll (1934-1961), a highly talented swiss graphic designer who had worked for studio boggeri in milan before teaming up with karl gerstner in basel.

after a year with geigy, she went to the u.s. to work at the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) in 1958. there she had a considerable influence on some u.s. designers (see e.g. this article in eye magazine).

only few years later, therese moll's career ended with her untimely death.