Orell Füssli | Lithographs – Intaglio – Letterpress – Offset

Even those who don’t like much works designed (primarily) with typographic elements will hardly be able to deny the appeal of this original poster by Zurich master Otto Baumberger. The surfaces in various colors complement the dominant type block set in sans serif letters in a way that proves to be the ideal solution when it comes to advertising the wide range of products (letterpress, gravure, lithography, offset, cartography, …) of a traditional printing house in a modern and effective way: The Orell Füssli Artistic Institute in Zurich, which dates back to 1519.

For two reasons, the people in charge will have taken great care to advertise only with an outstanding poster. On the one hand, of course, there was the fact that they were already printing thousands and thousands of posters themselves, which was to remain the case despite strong competition (in Zurich alone!) from the Wolfensberger Graphische Anstalt and the Fretz brothers. Secondly and above all, however, it was important to present itself at the cutting edge in view of its own design department – which was of particular importance in 1928 in that the previously dominant painterly poster, which had almost always been created by fine artists, was being pushed aside by the more objective design, created using purely constructive or (typo)graphic means, which came from one of the first commercial graphic artists fresh out of trade school.

It was therefore no wonder that Otto Baumberger was chosen to achieve this balancing act between warmth and objectivity at the end of the 1920s: he was able to switch nimbly between realistic landscapes, photographic-looking product depictions, abstract logo concepts and elegant-looking Art Deco works like no other Swiss poster designer.

more on Otto Baumberger:

Lake Zurich