Commonplaces Summer Programme Basel

A week ago Tony Pritchard, my course leader from the LCC, asked me to write about my experience in Basel. So I looked through my archive and I gathered the information about the course, as well as some photographs and quotes which help elucidate the philosophy behind the Basel School of Design and their Summer Programme.

Between 1968 and 1999, the ‘Basel School of Design’ had conducted an Advanced Class of Graphic Design which was attended by students from all over the world. When the school was transformed into University Level, this Advanced Class was unfortunately closed.

From the Basics in Design and Typography Programme, Basel 2008

When the Schule für Gestaltung Basel (Basel School of Design) first announced its First Summer Program ‘Basics in Design and Typography’, three weeks of workshops for graphic designers, students and educators, it emphasised the fact that the course would be conducted by Wolfgang Weingart and would ‘re-open a dialogue’ with the legendary Advanced Class of Graphic Design, closed since 1999 …

The course was delivered in a series of huge, clean white rooms, previously used as exhibition spaces within the Gewerbemuseum (trade museum) building. On the floor above was the Basel School of Design library; on the floor below was the Swiss Poster Collection. Each student was given their own enormous working space for the course. At the start of each class, all the equipment and materials were to be found ready and waiting in a neat pile on each desk. However, by far the most noticeable feature of the studio was the complete absence of computers . . .

Back to basics in Basel by Rupert Bassett

http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/back-to-basics-in-basel-extract

Drawing and Designing with Peter Olpe

In this workshop we had to draw pieces of track ballast from the Swiss Railway.

Only with a rich vocabulary of a solid graphic training is it possible to move freely among all one has learned. It is significant that often the most elementary experiences – which are commonly undervalued – are exactly those that can be the most lasting.

Tonal work is risk-free; line is perilous voyage. Line drawing had a nakedness that forced students to think in advance of the line they drew.

Colour and Designing with Dorothea Flury

For the workshop we just needed paper and tempera.

In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is–as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art. In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives us continually. To this end, the beginning is not a study of color systems.

Interaction of Color by Josef Albers

Basics in Typography with Wolfgang Weingart

Designing book covers using paper and scissors.

Good typography is not loud. A responsibly applied and readable type style is the first ingredient of good composition. Today, asymmetric composition is certainly feasible, however, typography is intrinsically symmetrical. A text block without indents is unclear. Indents help the reader by the logical order of the text. The best typography is invisible to the reader and serves to transmit the thoughts and intent of the author. Beautiful text, a text well composed, is legible. One of the highest virtues of good typography is its subtle elegance. It is not the duty of the typographer to consciously display or emulate the style of the current trends, nor to reflect the spirit of the times. Typography must be itself. It must be pleasing to the eye and not tiring. Good typography has absolutely nothing to do with remarkable or exotic type styles. This is the opinion of amateurs. The essence of letter-form is not modernity, but readability. (from Jan Tschichold’s document sent to Wolfgang Weingart)

It seemed as if everything that made me curious was forbidden: to question established typographic practice, change the rules, and to reevaluate its potential. I was motivated to provoke this stodgy profession and to stretch the typeshop’s capabilities to the breaking point, and finally, to prove once again that typography is an art.

My Way to Typography by Wolfgang Weingart

Space and Form (3D) with Stephan Primus

During the workshop we only used paper and a cutting knife.

Don’t even worry about being without a studio or being away  from your tools; you can always get out the paper. (from Josef Albers’s Report on a Course)

Things I liked most:

• the struggle while I was drawing the ballast stones
• Peter Olpe’s amazing pinhole cameras, which he builds himself
• the school’s poster collection, shown by Dorothea Flury
• Dorothea’s comment that students came to the Basel School of Design for Armin Hofmann, but wanted to stay for Kurt Hauert.
• the visit to the Novartis Campus (a treasure trove of design) guided by Kaspar Schmid and Lize Mifflin (Mifflin-Schmid Design)
• Beat Keusch who, according to Weingart, is the most sensible Swiss designer http://www.beatkeusch.ch/
• Paper Museum and it’s exhibition: 50th Aniversary of Helvetica
• Shaulager, a place to check out http://www.schaulager.org/smq/
• Letterform in Public Space, a guided tour through the city of Basel with Lisa Pomeroy
• Vitra, the collection of chairs and the Conference Pavilion designed by Tadao Ando http://www.vitra.com/en-us/corporation/designer/details/103924

*The black and white photographs (Drawing and Designing, Space and Form) come from the book we received after the course. They were made by two assistants in the Summer Programme,  Mo and Anne.

Here are some photographs of the book.