Autumn 2019
Swiss fresh air
Rosmarie Tissi: Graphic Design
By Rosmarie Tissi with texts by Claudia Cattaneo, Christoph Bignens, Erich Grasdorf and Nahoko Mori. Designed by Rosmarie Tissi and Bruno Margreth. Triest Verlag, €39
This modest book is the first to cover the long career of Swiss graphic designer Rosmarie Tissi, the first female member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI). Rosmarie Tissi: Graphic Design (Triest Verlag, €39) includes a foreword by Claudia Cattaneo, short essays by design historians Christoph Bignens and Erich Grasdorf and a 2011 interview with Tissi by Nahoko Mori first published in the magazine +81. Most of the book’s 119 pages are taken up with Tissi’s portfolio, presented in a way that lets the work speak for itself. The earliest works include a red, white and black poster from 1956; the most recent item is dated 2014.
Cattaneo, from Gewerbemuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, first met Siegfried Odermatt and Rosmarie Tissi in their studio ahead of exhibiting ‘&: Odermatt und Tissi’ in 2009. Her foreword sets out to position Tissi within the Swiss graphic design canon: ‘Rosmarie Tissi’s works are beholden to no set rules … she uses the available scope for visual experiments and breakaways – thus arriving at astonishing solutions without lapsing into a conventional canon of taste.’ Her text also aims to disentangle Tissi’s work from that of Odermatt; Tissi began working with her mentor Odermatt in 1958 as an apprentice. Ten years later, they opened their collective studio O&T, though they rarely designed as a team.
Right. Cover designed by Tissi.
Top. Spread from Rosmarie Tissi: Graphic Design, designed by Rosmarie Tissi and Bruno Margreth, showing the front and back cover of a folder for printing firm Anton Schöb Zürich, 1982.
Tissi’s work is wide-ranging, from corporate identities to spreads from a secondary school chemistry book. She has designed covers for design magazines Idea, Baseline, Domus and Novum and the book is full of her poster designs, some of which are for theatre and dance events, as well as for open-air serenade concerts in Zurich’s Villa Schönberg park.
We see Tissi’s logos from the 1970s and 80s for automotive manufacturer Benz AG, fabrics brand Teamtex and paper wholesaler Kupferschmid, followed by applications of typefaces she designed, including Sinaloa, Sonora, Mindanao and Palawan.
Tissi developed the concept and design for the book; its detailed captions offer insights into the design brief or design approach rather than the human story. Tissi’s answers to Nahoko Mori are cool and concise.
Sarah Snaith, design writer, editor, Buenos Aires
First published in Eye no. 99 vol. 25, 2019
Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and single issues.