Bruno Monguzzi

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Bruno Monguzzi Swiss/Italian Graphic Designer

By Hallie Mitchell

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Life and Influences of Bruno Monguzzi

Bruno Monguzzi was born on August 21,1941 at Menderiso, Ticino. This area was different then others around it. Menderiso consisted of German speaking Swiss, French Speaking Swiss, and Italians. This influenced Monguzzi’s work. He intuitively created his own hybrid Swiss Italian Design. This put Bruno Before studying design he wanted to be apart from other designers of the time. an architect. This was an issue though, His family hugely influenced his design because he was convinced he first had to career. His mother pushed him to make become and engineer. Being an engineer was an issue because Mathematics was a everything clear and understandable. requisite for an engineering degree, and While on the other hand his father it wasn’t his favorite subject. pushed him to achieve perfection. In combination they taught Bruno a sense He then started reading about Albert of duty and to differentiate between Camos. Simone Weil, Martin Buber, good and evil. In a whole they had and Jean Paul Sartre. These readings shown him everything has to be clear addressed issues of complexity and and understandable, but also has to contradiction that shaped the beliefs of be good for humanity. This is shown the generation he was in. This taught through stimulating artistic characterhim most importantly to understand istics in his design work that provides the whole of his design work not just clear meaning and perfect hierarchy. individual pieces.

While growing up Bruno did not always believe he was going to be a graphic de- A specific reading very important to signer. All throughout his childhood he the adolescent Bruno Monguzzi was enjoyed writing, acting, gymnastics, and “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Expory. It had explained to him in playing the drum. All of these hobby’s consisted of qualities like dialog, rythem, metaphor, the differences of people and how many other types of people there inventiveness. These qualities were important to his understanding of visual were in the world. Bruno claims that he communication.

kept re-reading it and with every time he re-read this writing he gained more knowledge.

While in school for graphic design Bruno was exposed to Designers that helped him form his own ways of doing things.

He was most influences by Swiss designers Hans Neuberg, Carlo Vivarli, and Joseph Muller Brockmann. These artists created work that was in his words “Just powerful communication and extremely beautiful design.”(Quarcoo, Pg 28.)

Bruno Monguzzi’s Childhood all lead up to his career in graphic design. Every piece weather it seemed relatable from the outside eye or not ended up having to do with his way of designing today. It was all about visual communication to Bruno Monguzzi.

Entry for Fedral Reserve of Switzerland, New Banknote Series 1991, Bruno Monguzzi

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Skira Monograph, Bruno Monguzi, Fifty Years of Paper, 1961-2011.

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Swiss Design Swiss Design showed up around Switzerland and Germany after the second world war. The designers involved with this type of design all had common rules and philosophy behind there work. Swiss design was all about pure graphic communication through an objective This was shown through impersonal presentation of information.

Swiss designers tended to try

not to subjectify feelings. The Swiss designers usually stuck to the same typefaces helvetica in particular. Most of the designs of Swiss designers were in black and white and had strong asymmetric compositions.

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Italian Italian Design was a type of design based around 20th century when industrialization in Italy was booming. The Italian designers reinvented form in the world of visual communication. They did this through the use of experimentation and being able to grab there spectators attention and take them away from perspective. This created a motion and energy to there designs. The designers would break the boundary’s of a static balanced composition and disrupt forms to create motion. This helped open forms up to there surroundings.

Museo Catonale d’Arte, Lugano Florence Henri, Lucia Moholy Poster, 128x90.5cm 1991, Bruno Monguzzi

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Bruno Monguzzi 6866 Meride Svizzera, Italy “As a matter of a fact most American designers think I’m Italian. Even some Swiss still do.

On the contrary Italian designers, in spite of my name, swear I’m Svizzerro.”

B

runo Monguzzi was raised as a Swiss designer. He studied at Swiss design schools.

This didn’t make him a Swiss designer though. He as in fact a hybrid Swiss Italian Designer. He was born in a time and place when people weren’t able to be considered both Swiss and Italian. "The people are to Italian to be really Swiss, but too

Swiss to be considered Italian.” (Quarcoo,pg.28.) He was one of a kind. His work was dynamic, active, and emotionally connected like Italian design. At the same time his work was also very concise and legible like Swiss design. His design work was balanced between the two movements.

People were so convinced he was italian that he even had people sending him mail addressed to Italy.

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Swiss & Italian Bruno Monguzzi was a Graphic Designer different then any other of his time. He combined two genres of design successfully before anyone else in his area of design. He was intricate and simple but bold and emotional. His work was legible and clear, as well as beautifully pieced together. The way Monguzzi looks at his work he wants his work to be furthest from a trend or a fashion style.

He believed that the work should reflect the place in witch it is functioning. More

so then who designed it. This makes all of his work completely separate from the rest. “The consistency of his work, however, given the nature of his working method, avoids the pitfalls of personal style. Each work stands on its own intelligence, clarity, and grace.”

(Quarcoo,pg. 29)

“The design should primarily bear the trademark of the sender, not the designer.”

-Bruno Monguzzi -Bruno Monguzzi

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“The audience not to be seduced by the passing fads and to concentrate instead on the fundamentals: the essence of things.�

-Bruno Monguzzi

In Fotografie Una Collezione Privata 1999, Bruno Monguzzi

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Reactions Kunstaus, Zurich Photography from the Soviet Union Invitation Card 21x14.cm, 1989 Bruno Monguzzi

“Bruno seems to respond to “He’s advocating something deeper.

“To understand Bruno Monguzzi the rules, but some how his He’s advocating using as much is to know his passion to commuemotional and human side enters historical, cultural, psychological, nicate effectively and gracefully. into the design process, with the humanitarian and personal knowlFirmly rooted in his own time, result that his work expresses a Monguzzi’s designs are nourished edge as possible to create work that warmth uncommon to so much of by existing elements and a knowl- expresses underlying function” the work by other designers of the edge of history that allows him to Swiss school and becomes highly integrate past and present.” personal” “So much information so elegantly handled on a poster” “In each of his projects, the core always shines through, the very heart of the intuition that created the chain of relationships that “are” that object.”

“Yet despite having so many elements, the arrangement feels anything but cramped.”

“He works within rigid grids, but his approach to a design problem is dual, to make it easily readable while achieving visual surprise by the way he mixes type,color, white of space, and sizing and positioning graphic elements.”

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Museo Cantonale d’Arte Lugano, Collezoine permanente XIX e XX secolo’ Triptych 128x271.5cm, 1999 Bruno Monguzzi Bibliography: Bedford, Paul. “A Working Relationship.” Creative Designed and written by Hallie Mitchell Review, Vol. 35 Issue 3: Pg. 90. Print.

Composed in Helvetica and Baskerville Shaughnessy, Adrian. “Why Monguzzi Stands Apart.(Column).” Creative Review 1 Feb. 2004.

Print.

Quarcoo, Franc, Bruno Monguzzi, and Baltimore County Maryland. Bruno Monguzzi: A Designer’s Perspective. Baltimore, Md.: Fine Arts Gallery, U of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1998. Print.

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