Swiss Typography is globally recognised for its professionalism. The type is neat harmonious and eye catching, but most importantly it’s decipherable. Wolfgang Weingart broke these established rules with typography and completely revolutionised Swiss Typography. The German designer was trained in Modern Swiss Typography during his education but fell away from tradition by challenging layout, spacing and the overall way type conveys its meaning. His work contains that of both analogous techniques as well as digital, often combining the two to push the boundaries of typography as it was known.

His exploration of typographic techniques caused him to become the predecessor of a new movement known as ‘New Wave Typography’. Modern Swiss Typography adheres to strict grids to ensure the words and lettering remain crisp and neat and guarantees total legibility. However, New Wave, or Swiss Punk Typography completely ignores this grid structure, incorporating inconsistent letter spacing,and varying weights between letters, frequently in the same word as well as type not being set at right angles. Oftentimes all legibility is lost. But the point Weingart is making with his work is that typography is its own art form and the meaning isn’t as nearly as important as the words and overall style of the word, “What’s the use of being legible, when nothing inspires you to take notice of it.’ Personally, I really love Weingart’s designs and the New Wave style. I find it more interesting to look at, even if the words aren’t decipherable a lot of the time. The overall design and layout is quirky and different and even more modernised compared to some more professional styles of typography. I really hope to include some of this style of typography in my work in future projects.