Gerda Breuer

Bilingual edition (English/German) / Zweisprachige Ausgabe (deutsch/englisch) By and large, women have been left out of the history of graphic design. Yet if we look beyond the surface of this familiar account, what becomes clear is the influence women graphic designers have had on the discipline right from the start. The book shows how these women developed their own traditions, fostered dialogue and built connections between their designs, acted as role models, created networks, and proved their capacity for self-empowerment. Illuminating this struggle for professional recognition, Gerda Breuer highlights the collective formats women designers have used to enhance their own visibility, champion women’s issues, and make a mark on the world. Both little-known collectives and renowned graphic designers such as Lyubov Popova, Änne Koken, Ethel Reed, and Sarah Wyman Whitman contributed to the history of graphic design. Breuer’s approach demonstrates the ways that women’s important contributions been devalued, ignored, or relegated to the background—in short, made to disappear—in the narrative that is usually presented. In the context of contemporary challenges to the traditional canon of graphic design, integrating these contributions into design history is long overdue. Design by Katja Lis, DBF Designbüro Frankfurt

English summary: Which theories, methods, and criticisms did the first German-speaking women art historians develop, which points of view, knowledge practices, and interpretations did they introduce to art history? The anthology exemplifies these questions in 24 text excerpts and invites readers to rediscover the early diversity of the discipline. German description: Die Altmeister der Kunstgeschichte und ihre Werke sind fester Bestandteil des universitaren Studiums. Der Beitrag fruher Kunsthistorikerinnen zur Entwicklung der Disziplin ist hingegen bis heute weitgehend unsichtbar. Welche neuen Sichtweisen auf die Kunst, welche Methoden und Fragestellungen entwickelten die ersten Kunsthistorikerinnen, die seit dem spaten 19. Jahrhundert im deutschsprachigen Raum zum Studium zugelassen wurden? Welche Wirkungsfelder erschlossen sie sich, bevor der Nationalsozialismus vielen von ihnen eine Zasur setzte, die nach 1945 nur langsam uberwunden werden konnte? In dem Band werden 24 Texte vorgestellt, die zwischen 1910 bis 1980 entstanden sind. Expert*innen fuhren in die Entstehungszusammenhange der Texte ein. So macht der Band Arbeiten fruher Kunsthistorikerinnen wieder zuganglich und ladt dazu ein, die Vielfalt der Disziplin neu zu entdecken.

The Magic of Things explores a former advertising strategy of Swiss product posters in which banal, everyday objects--butter, a sewing machine, or shoes--are presented as desirable objects enticing us to buy. Free from any further contextualization, the objects acquire a sensual presence and magical aura. The product poster had its heyday in Switzerland in the 1940s with designers such as Niklaus Stoecklin, Peter Birkhauser, or Otto Baumberger. As consumer society developed, however, the exclusive focus on the product and the brand name was no longer enough--in advertising, the feelings associated with the object as it related to life grew increasingly important. Today it is in the cultural poster that the magical depiction of things is experiencing a kind of renaissance.