Introduction
Welcome to the Online Exhibition Component for Armin Hoffman. Come visit the exhibition at TheBenton in Storrs, Connecticut. It runs from April 27th to May 1st.
Simple, economical, and clean. Those three words best describe Armin Hofmann's work. Born in 1925 in Winterthur, Switzerland, Hofmann spent his adulthood learning and teaching design. He began his design career as a teacher in the 1940's at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland. Hoffman had also taught a number of classes at Yale as well. In 1965, Armin Hofmann wrote the "Graphic Design Manual," which still gets used in classes today. Overall, as a promoter for "Swiss Style," his work emphasized clean typographic forms and economical uses of color.
This Site & Hofmann's Work
This exhibit takes a que from 2 of Hofmann's posters entitled "Gewerbe museum Basel" and "Plakate." Both posters were designed for Basel Museums. In their designs, both contain dynamic compositions within a simple grid, wide leading, usage of columns, usage of shapes and minimal use of colors. The "Gewerbe" poster in particuarlar draws the viewers eye from left to right and all around because of the juxtaposition of the texts and red shapes of the poster. The use of the color red makes it a strikingly beautiful work as it creates for a lively and engaging presence. This site takes that idea of simple shapes as well as the dynamic arrangement of widely leaded columns within a grided system to create for an engaging, yet simple and swiss-like layout. Hofmann was not a design-clutterer. He kept things simple yet dynamic and engaging. Just like Hofmann's style, this site's purpose is to keep things simply Swiss.
A Discussion of Other Work
A well known piece of Hofmann's work, that exemplifies his style, is the 1963 poster for the Friedrich Schiller play, "William Tell". This piece of work shows the story of Tell and the dilemma he faced. He was forced to shoot an apple, off of his son's head, with an arrow. The poster's simple use of color demonstrates Hofmann's preference of using clean type and simple colors to give meaning. The letters of the word, "Tell," connect as they, one by one, get progressively smaller, and accentuate the distance and motion traveled by the arrow that Tell shot. "Tell's" juxtaposition, within the apple, foreshadows the arrow hitting its target, dead-on. Hofmann's poster not only does the job of announcing the William Tell-related event but also effectively tells the story with just a few simple elements.
Another good example of Hofmann's simplistic yet effective design is the Swiss housing development poster (seen at Rene Wanner's site). Hofmann takes triangles and rectangles to portray houses. The white shapes represent the sides of the houses with the red shapes are of the roofs. The green negative spaces in the piece further emphasize the shapes of the houses in their simplest form while also depicting grass. The text, within the piece, extends over the leftest house into the bottom right house, making use of the white spaces' shape, as a text box.
In Retrospect
The Swiss Style, as well as many other designers, owe a lot to Hofmann's influence today. One of this exhibit's goals is to bring awareness to Hofmann's influence upon the design world. Another purpose, of this online exhibition, is to showcase Armin Hofmann's work through a design that 'speaks' to his style. Through his simple use of typography, image, and restricted use of colors, Hofmann created some beautiful pieces of work. By emulating those elements, this exhibit acts as a respectable homage and resource for one of modern history's greatest designers.