Study on Piet Zwart, photographer, architect and designer

by salvadorgnarly (student)

Piet Zwart is a photographer, Architect and designer born 25th May 1885 in Zaandijk, Netherlands. Zwart was educated at the School of Applied Arts of Amsterdam in 1902 that was influenced by the principles of the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Zawt’s career in graphic designer started in the Netherlands in the 1921 when he became a draftsman for the architect Jan Wils where he was put up to the task of designing stationery for the office. His most iconic graphic design work came from working for the NKF Company where he created many works such as a full-colour, 80 page printed catalogue. Influenced by art movements such as Constructivism and De Stijl, Zwart makes excellent use of colour, typography, composition and photography that is also reminiscent of that produced by the Bauhaus. Piet Zwart considered himself as a hybrid between a typographer and an architect. Piet Zwart was awarded the title of ‘Designer of the Century’ in 2000.

“Among the few I have indicated, is there no dynamic man of action, the rebel who will help determine the aspect of the collective expression of tomorrow? Ponder this question and know that to make beautiful creations for the sake of their aesthetic value will have no social significance tomorrow, will be nonsensical self-gratification. Every era contains the conditions for providing a rebel.” - Piet Zwar

Piet Zwart uses simple geometric forms such as circles and rectangles in a lot of his design work. He also makes use of photographic and typographic elements. Zwart makes use of primary ...

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Piet Zwart uses simple geometric forms such as circles and rectangles in a lot of his design work. He also makes use of photographic and typographic elements. Zwart makes use of primary colours in a lot of his pieces as well as contrasting colours like black and white. The composition that Piet Zwart uses is very spaced out creating a large amount of background space, and being careful not to overfill the page. This gives Zwarts work a very clean, industrial look to his designs. The composition elements to his design are very reminiscent to those of the Bauhaus where he has placed text on the page in a vertical way usually following the forms of pictures and geometric shapes. This also helps with the sleekness of his designs.

Zwarts graphic design work is very simple, I feel that he does this, as being simple there are fewer things to be dis- liked about the piece and thus creating a timeless design that would still not look dated in the present day.

In the catalogue for NKF Zawrt makes use of geometric shapes to highlight certain areas of a photograph that he then enlarges on another page. This is a creative way to convey a simple task which sets this catalogue apart from its associated stereotype that is something which can be considered to be very formal and boring and transformed it to into an interesting piece of graphic design work. When looking through the pages of the NKF catalogue at first glance it may be hard to distinguish the fact that its purpose is to document a list of items produced by the company. This is why I feel that Piet Zwart was so successful in what he did as he was breaking down barriers of how people should perceive a formal publication. Zwart made this document something that someone would want to look through if only for the visual appeal of the de- signs, which in turn greatly benefited the company as it attracted a wider demographic.

Piet Zwart has used the technique of photomontage. He has also colourizer the photographs that he has used; this is to give them a more designed look. He has also used colour burns when layering geometric elements with photographs, this gives the general design a more easier on the eye appearance as placing large block colours on the page would take away the attention of the object that is meant to be the focus.