Karl gerstner By, Cade Jarvis

It’s More Complicated Than You Know: It’s More Complicated Than You Know:

RL GERST

KARL GERSTNER KARL GERSTNER The freedom of the designer is not at the edge of his task, but its center.

Cinema Rex, fifties

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arl Gerstner, a graphic designer from the ‘50s and ‘60s until the day he died believed in his work and the very preciseness of it as well as the abstraction. His life was divided between being a painter and a graphic designer, which he saw suc­cess in both pur­suits. Graphic design was where he really got noticed. His art consisted of very abstract yet complicated shapes.The works he made were all very simple yet complicated. They incorporate a lot of tension and movement. The colors he used were either very vibrant and bold for that ecstatic look or in black and white. He would also add photos sometimes to his art to make them feel more realistic. In order to incorporate all of those together he had to use a more complex form of the grid system to fit so much on one page or a whole book.

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Geigy, fifties Geigy, fifties

Auch Du Bist Liberal, fifties

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Auch Du Bist Liberal, fifties

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Early Work

Rheinbrucke Department Store, fifties

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e would create multiple pieces for companies so that one or two would be what the company asked for, and the last one would be one of his own creation. He did this because he wanted to bring out his alter ego; the free lance artist into some of his work. Gerstner then created a small book called Kalte Kunst that talks about all kinds of different art that he found inspiring along side artist. The Kalte Kunst book holds a collection of geometric artist of the time that were inspirational to his work both graphic design and his paintings. It also included how he came up with each important piece, step by step as a guide to later on graphic designers.

Geigy, fifties

Geigy, fifties

Sinar, sixties

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Structure

Typography is not an art, although it is at the service of a task, but precisely because of it.

Schwitter Cliches, fifties

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hrough the years only a couple of things never really changed; Swiss stylize and the complexity of the piece. Sure he tried a few new ways to display his work but must of the time he would resort to his old teachings and just use a Swiss styled display. The complexity of each piece never grew too intricate, usually a few shapes would complete it like the Schwitter ClichÊs. He liked the complexity to be shown through the color and the small moments between shapes. This even showed in his paintings, which wasn’t that uncommon back then, there were a lot of very geometric painters.

Gerstner had specific ways of coming across a project to create an end result, one of which was the swiss style. The Swiss style was used for the setup of the words most of the time. He created formulas for the rest of his work, so when he needed something done all he had to do was turn back to his formulas of how to make a strong composition come true.

DCTP, eighties

Holzapfel, sixties

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I created everyday art without forcing people into museums.

Shell logo, sixties

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Known Work

K

arl Gerstner created a lot of work but there are few that everyone will recognise as his.

One of those pieces is the Shell logo, a careful yet fun and simple design. It had a long process to get to where it resembled a shell without being a photo of a shell. Many airline logos were also designed by him including Air Canada, Panam, TWA, and Air France. These are just a small portion of the hundreds of identities he has done. The biggest of which is the SwissAir sign.

The SwissAir design is what granted Gerstner worldwide audience to his work.

Swissair logo, seventies

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Designed and written by Cade Jarvis Composed in Indesign Copyright Š 2017 Cade Jarvis, Portland, Maine, Maine College of Art

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