Armin Hofmann

Design Focus Welcome to The World of Design

Armin Hofmann

Swiss Graphic Designer 1950s

Armin Hofmann The man The designer The visionary Design Focus: Part One Welcome to The World of Design

Design Focus

The Man

Armin Hofmann, reknowned Swiss graphic designer and educator, completely revolutionised the face of design. With his ethos based around simplicity and clarity and its ability to attain power and elegance, he created an influencial ripple effect on generations of designers.

In his hometown Weinterthur, Switzerland, Armin Hofmann was born in 1920. He began his design journey at the School of Arts and Crafts in Zurich, and once graduated worked as a lithographer where he eventually began a design studio in Basel. Here he began his career as a mentor for 40 years at the Basel School of Arts and Crafts. He instituted an advanced graphic design class in 1968, where he progressed into the head of the graphic design department.

Photograph of Swiss Designer Armin Hofmann

Page One

Design Focus

The Designer

After continuing his career as a teacher, he released Graphic Design Manual in 1965. The publication was a refinement of the fundamental design principles that founded his logical technique when teaching.

To this day, an updated version of this didactic publication is still in being printed and sold.

Armin Hofmann believed that his designs were educational examples of these principles.

In the late 1950s and 60s, Hofmann designed commission work for cultural clients such as Stadttheater Basel and Kunsthalle. These posters were exempelary typographic examples and contained the purest form of photography.

“In Hofmann’s 1959 poster for the ballet Giselle, the stark white typographic tower of the title - note the intermediary dot of the “i” holds the blurring halftone of the dancer’s pirouette in a state of dynamic balance and grace”. - Rick Poyner

Poster for Giselle Ballet

by Armin Hofmann

Page Two

Design Focus

“In its purity of form and purposeful expression, Hofmann’s work is uniquely personal,” says Allemann. “It also has soul.” For Robert and Alison Probst, who was also Hofmann’s student, these enduring designs are the work of “a master of his craft with a superior sense of aesthetics.

His work deals with the universal language of signs and symbols, often including serendipity and always aiming for timeless beauty.”

1.a. Stadttheater Basel 63/64 by Armin Hofmann 2.a. A Series of Visual Conversations by Armin Hofmann 3.a. Die gute Form Poster 1954 by Armin Hofmann

Page Three

The Visionary

1.a

2.a

3.a