wiedler.ch

book (design) story #84

georg schmidt:
kunst und naturform

basilius presse, basel, 1960
printer: basler druck- und verlagsanstalt, basel
size: 29 x 24 cm
designer: igildo g. biesele

at the occasion of its 200-year anniversary, the basel-based geigy company (see story 83) also sponsored an exhibition curated by georg schmidt (1896-1965) who wrote numerous important books on modern art (see stories 25 and 80). this book was based on that exhibition but published two years later.

the book was designed by igildo g. biesele (*1930), a member of the chemical company's graphic design team that created the distinctive "geigy style". biesele was also a teacher at the gewerbeschule basel where other famous "basel school" typographers like emil ruder, armin hofmann, and wolfgang weingart worked at some time.

the influence of karl gerstner's style is quite obvious: the bright-coloured slipcase with trilingual titels printed in akzidenz-grotesk semi-bold is similar to book 37.

the design of the slipcase is varied on the cloth cover and on the title page.

the idea of the book (and the exhibition) was to demonstrate that modern abstract art actually corresponds to the new visual reality provided by scientific imaging.

above: cristal structures and a painting by camille graeser. below: color chromatography and a work by richard paul lohse (also reproduced in story 82).

piet mondrian's painting is compared to a microscopic photo of a copper-aluminum alloy.

max bill's sculpture "infinity" ressembles bone structures under a microscope.