The Zurich Design Museum is showcasing the exhibition “Helmut Schmid Typography” until October 20th, which highlights the work of the graphic designer and typographer. Concurrently, “Japanese Graphics Today” offers insights into the current Japanese graphic scene.
Today, companies, brands, products, and markets are closely interconnected globally. Consequently, transculturality plays an important role in design and marketing. With Helmut Schmid (1942 to 2018), the Zurich Design Museum presents a graphic designer and typographer who not only brought Swiss typography to Japan but also settled there and integrated Japanese tradition with Western modernity in his work. Schmid primarily worked with the sensuality of signs, in contrast to the Western tradition, which focuses on the meaning of signs.
His typography stands for elegance, harmony, and precision: the letters are precisely set, printed and unprinted areas are subtly balanced, and the white space plays an active role. Undoubtedly, according to the museum, Schmid drew on the modern typography of his Basel teacher Emil Ruder, “whose principles he refined and combined with the pure forms of Japanese characters.” Schmid mainly worked with text. He preferred pure black-and-white typography. He designed magazine titles, books, poster prints, printed materials, calendars, as well as logos and inscriptions. Fascinated by the Japanese writing system, he early on designed his own Japanese syllabary (Katakana Eru) to harmonize Japanese-English product names.
Until October 20th, the Zurich Museum of Design is showcasing a cross-section of his entire body of work, which was donated to the museum, under the simple title “Helmut Schmid Typography”. The exhibition follows the stages of Schmid’s career and groups his work thematically. It begins with Schmid’s training as a typographer at the General Trade School in Basel and ends with his work as a teacher and mediator. His Japanese syllabaries and printing-technical experiments are presented, as well as his political typography, including the legendary campaigns for the German SPD and their Federal Chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt. Also on display are Schmid’s designs for his most important clients in Japan, the pharmaceutical company Otsuka and the cosmetics company Shiseido, for whom he created timeless minimalist product logos. Schmid, who among other things wrote a history of typography published in various languages, taught from 2000 at Kobe Design University and Hongik University in Seoul. A publication has been released by Lars Müller Publishers to accompany the exhibition.
Japanese Graphics Today
In addition to the homage to Helmut Schmid, the museum is also presenting an overview of the contemporary Japanese graphic scene in the exhibition “Japanese Graphics Today” until January 12, 2025.
This exhibition spans from playful pop culture to works that pay homage to a historically grown sense of tradition. It showcases a cross-section of contemporary design practice, highlighting Japan’s intense exchange with globalized society.
