The International Style developed in the 1950s post World War II Switzerland, by several designers who had fled the strict Nazi regime in Germany. The movement focused on communication through universal clarity and in fact was adopted by all over the world.

The Swiss style, was influenced from Constructivists, the Bauhaus, De Stijl as well as Jan Tschichold. As a consequence we see many other designers shifting their design approach and now working under this new principle of design being all about simplicity.

Swiss Design was not involved in any political or historical context. Its main characteristics involved the use of mathematical constructed grids. The gird was used to prioritise and arrange typographic and illustrative elements that are all placed in an order, based on left-to right, top-to-bottom. One of the best ways to express ideas clearly is to be organised. The Swiss style managed to remove any unnecessary design elements by keeping to grids and depicting ideas in the most credible and clear manner.

We also see the importance of varying font sizes which where used in order to enhance the importance text in a hierarchy manner.  One of the typical characteristics of Swiss style is the use of sans-serif typefaces, which in turn speaks clean and simple. Designers often used asymmetrical compositions with sans serif typography placed in flush left and ragged right.

A promotional poster for Herman Miller titled “Furniture of our Times” is a collection of shapes, which could be used to sit on drawn as abstract silhouettes. Sans-serif type is being used with asymmetric layout. The type, just as often done, is placed to the left and to the right. The grid is used to place elements in an orderly fashion. The use of colour is reminiscent of the constructivists using red, black and white. The colours support the simplicity and clarity of this design.

Josef Müller-Brockmann’s was another designer that influenced the Swiss style. Müllers drive was based on creating posters that delivered his message across to masses.  In his poster, Müller-Brockmann combines type with cropped photography. It depicts the front wheel of a motorbike that takes up half the composition, as well as a small figure of a boy running away from the bike. Type is placed horizontally on the top-left part of the composition and hierarchy is shown in the two different scales. The message to ‘protect the child’ from vehicles is excellently portrayed through its clarity and legibility.

In my opinion the greatest impact the movement had on the world today is the use of Helvetica typeface, ‘Neue Haas Grotesk’. It is clear, legible and simple and that is why it is still u­­sed in almost every aspect of design today.

Matt Judge, a London based designer makes use of Swiss techniques in his online portfolio, designjudge.co.uk. This site engages viewers with strong block coloured background, accompanied by a clear, beautiful typeface. A hint of a grid structure is used and the font size is varied to bring out the clarity of the message.

Just as Matt Judge was influenced from Swiss design, in today’s society designers still follow the same design concepts. In fact we could say that the International style was the forerunner of most designs today, who still make use of many elements such as the grid system. Helvetica is still a fresh typeface and designers choose to use it specifically and especially for clarity and order in their work.