Eye no. 1
Volume 1, Number 1 Autumn 1990
Rick Poynor [Editor]
London: Wordsearch Ltd., Volume 1, Number 1 Autumn 1990. Parallel text in English, German and French. Quarto. Letterpress scored photo illustrated wrappers. 96 pp. Articles and advertisements printed on multiple paper stocks. Essays illustrated with full color examples throughout, with design and typography of the highest order. Cover artwork: Piet Zwart page detail from Het Boek van PTT, 1938. Spine ends pressed, but a nearly fine copy.
9.25 x 11.75-inch quarterly Design journal with 96 pages of fully illustrated content. “Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture.”
Contents:
Bruno Monguzzi (Swiss, b. 1941) studied Graphic Design in Geneva, then Typography, Photography and Gestalt Psychology in London. “I left for London where I selected a few courses: Romek Marber’s at St Martin’s, Dennis Bailey’s at Central, photography at the London School of Printing. Thanks to Ken Briggs, whom I had also met at St Martin’s and who tried to answer my many questions, I discovered Gestalt psychology and became very involved in the study of visual perception. It is at that point, in 1961, that I started to believe in graphic design as a problem-solving profession rather than a problem-making one and that I slowly began to push away my hidden dream to became another Werner Bischof. It was also at the time that I began to understand and to love the American school: Gene Federico, Herb Lubalin, Lou Dorfsman, Lou Danziger, Charles and Ray Eames.”
“In the second issue of Neue Grafik I discovered the Milanese pioneers – Studio Boggeri, Max Huber, Franco Grignani – and I decided to fly to Milan to meet Antonio Boggeri. I still remember the tiny elevator of 3 Piazza Duse. On the slow, shaky journey up to the sixth floor I felt uneasy. And I felt uneasy for the following two years, having fallen in love with the man, his ideas, the designs of Aldo Calabresi and the office with the balcony overlooking the Giardini. After a few weeks of desperate struggle to be good enough to stay there, I was called for. Lifting his lean, long hands – the most beautiful hands I have ever seen – Boggeri shared with me his theory about the spider’s web. Like the spider’s web, he said, Swiss graphic design was perfect, but often of a useless perfection. The web, he stated, was only useful when harmed by the entangled fly. It was then that my vocabulary began to increase. And it was then that my use of type and pictures began to grow towards more expressive solutions.”
Monguzzi was Art Consultant for Abitare magazine from 1986 to 1991. He was the sole designer for Museo Cantonale d’Arte, Lugano from 1987 to 2004. He lives and works in Meride, Switzerland.
The high design standards of The Netherlands Post, Telegram and Telephone Services [PTT] were first implemented by Jean van Royen and his adherence to typographic and design excellence and set a standard for the PTT for years to come. In the early 1930s, he commissioned Piet Zwart to transform PTT's in-house design style. This beautiful chapter in the history of graphic design came to "a brutal conclusion" when van Royen died in 1941 because of his opposition to fascism. Fortunately, van Royen’s design legacy was revived after the war and continues to this day. Artists and designers who have contributed to the PTT visual identity include Charles Peguy, Rene van Raalte, Willem Penaat, Charles Eyck, Chris Lebeau, Fokko Mees, Andre van der Vossen, Jan Toorop, Kolomon Moser, Jac Jongert, Michel de Klerk, Wybo Meyer, Vilmos Huszar, Anton van der Valk, Nicolaas de Koo, Anton Kurvers, Kurt Schwitters, Piet Zwart, Paul Schuitema, Henny Cahn, Leendert van der Vlugt, Otto Treumann, Cas Oorthuys, Pieter Brattinga, Dick Elffers, Willem Sandberg, Peter Struyckens, and Dawn Barret among many many others.
Studio Dumbar is a highly influential Dutch graphic design agency whose work has helped shape, not only Dutch, but international design for over four decades. Studio Dumbar was founded in the Hague by Gert Dumbar in 1977. Studio Dumbar describes itself as “an international branding agency specialised in visual identity and communication design” meaning that it creates every visible expression of a brand or organisation — offline and online. Its international scope is reflected in its team, with an average of seven nationalities in Rotterdam. Dumbar studied painting and graphic design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague. He earned his postgraduate degree in graphic design at the Royal College of Art in London. He founded his own firm, Studio Dumbar, in 1977, creating many iconic corporate identity systems for clients such as the Dutch Postal and Telecom Services, Dutch Railways, Dutch Police, the Danish Post and Czech Telecom.