Theo Bullmer

After World War I, the Swiss came to the fore in graphic design, a new discipline required to meet the needs of the machine age. The Swiss readily absorbed its principles from the Russian Constructivists, the Dutch De Stijl movement, and the experiments at the Bauhaus.

The key figure in Switzerland was Ernst Keller, who began teaching at the Design School in Zurich in 1918, and mentored the generation of artists who would create the world leading International Typographic Style after World War II. Other key figures were Jan Tschichold, formulator of The New Typography, who emigrated to Basel in 1933 and began teaching at the Design School there; and Theo Ballmer, a pupil of Keller’s who studied briefly at the Bauhaus and taught at the Basel Design School beginning in 1931.

Theo Ballmer alongside Max Bill studied at Bauhaus and later moved to Zurich Switzerland. Both Bullmer and Bill ingrained the grid in generations of designers.

This poster designed by Theo Bullmer is an excellent example of simple constructavist design, this style of layout and grid is simular to the work of armin Hofmann, its interesting to see how the swiss changed and moulded thier own style later known as Neue Grafik taking bits from de stijl, bauhaus teachings, constructivism etc.

Elements of Concrete style; simple block colours and geometric forms.