Monday, 1:51pm
8 February 2010
Town of type
Revisiting the book designers of St Gallen, Switzerland
St Gallen in northeastern Switzerland is renowned for its Abbey Library, with its valuable medieval collection.
The town’s contribution to Swiss publishing in the twentieth century has been rather less widely recognised, but ‘Book design in St Gallen’ at St Bride Library should do a little to redress the balance.
Top: Poster for Jost Hochuli’s exhibitions in London (1996) and St Gallen (1997).
Below: Richard Butz’s Mein St. Gallen. St. Gallen: VGS (1994).
To open the exhibition on 4 March, Jost Hochuli, the foremost exponent of the ‘third way’ in Swiss typography, will look back on 60 years of book design in his home town, with an evening talk about the exhibition, which includes work from Imre Reiner, Rudolf Hostettler, Max Koller and Hans-Peter Kaeser. Among younger designers featured Hafen Senn Steiger and Josef Felix Müller, as well as Gaston Isoz. If not all these names are familiar, check out the show!
Richard Hollis and Robin Kinross of Hyphen Press, who should need no introduction to Eye readers, will be chipping in with another evening talk on 17 March, when they will be joined by Roland Früh. Subjects under discussion will include Hochuli’s own work and the contribution of editor Ralf Hostettler.
Below: Jost Hochuli, Freude an Schriften / Joy in Type. St Gallen: Typotron, no.11 (1993).
‘Book design in St Gallen’, St Bride Library, London
4 > 19 March 2010; Mon-Fri 9am-6pm (until 9.30pm on Wednesdays)
Admission free.
stbride.org
Evening talks (both 7pm):
Thursday 4 March: Jost Hochuli
Wednesday 17 March: Roland Früh, Richard Hollis, Robin Kinross
Admission £7 (concessions/friends of St Bride Library: £5).
For more events, check out Eye’s events page.
Eye, the international review of graphic design, is a quarterly journal you can read like a magazine and collect like a book. It’s available from all good design bookshops and at the online Eye shop, where you can order subscriptions, single issues and (new!) classic collections of themed back issues. Eye 74 is a Berlin special.