The graphic designers of the 80s and 90s

Various graphic designers of the 1980s shaped the Swiss poster landscape with unconventional styles: Claude Kuhn with memorable characters and clear colour fields, Niklaus Troxler with his colourful jazz posters with a dynamic interplay between image and typography, and Paul Brühwiler with narrative, almost poetic motifs on his numerous and multiple award-winning posters for the Zurich Filmpodium.

Among the Swiss poster designers who created almost exclusively cultural posters are the Lausanne designer Werner Jeker, who stands out because of his many black-and-white posters for the Musée de l’Elysée, and the Lucerne-born designer Ralph Schraivogel with highly unconventional typographic design making his posters particularly remarkable.

Particular attention must be paid to Bruno Monguzzi, who lives and works in southern Switzerland. Monguzzi, a trained typographer and photographer, worked at the famous Studio Boggeri in Milan in the early 1960s. He became a teacher for typographic design in Venice and designed several pavilions for the 1967 Expo in Montreal. His understanding of typography and his sensitive style of design become apparent in the corporate design that he created for the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and in his wonderful, masterly posters for the Museo d’Arte in Lugano. A great many of his posters received awards both in Switzerland and abroad.