Armin Hofmann

monograph: Poster Collection 07 — Armin Hofmann, Lars Müller, 2003

1. What it is — exhibition poster on Japanese architecture, Gewerbemuseum Basel. Print technique not given in the record.
2. Composition — reading of the work (v2): the entire poster is four lines of letters TEMPEL / TEE- / HAUS / JAPAN, left-aligned, in the top ~55% of the format; the lower half is empty except a small block of exhibition details bottom right. The letters are built from horizontal slats — each letter is a bundle of parallel strips with gaps, like a wooden lattice/shoji. No image: typography is the illustration. The eye reads top to bottom, word by word, then drops into the emptiness — the emptiness below is the "garden".
3. Colour — reading of the work (v2) — correction: not black-and-white. One orange- red (vermilion) for the letters + small black text on white. One colour, one job: the letters. Nothing else is coloured.
4. Typography — reading of the work (v2): drawn letters, not typeset — capitals, wide, constructed from strips; "TEE-" with a hyphen splits the compound so the words fit into the same column. Small text: linear grotesque, not to be named.
5. Message — Japanese architecture shown through the construction of the letters, not a photograph of a temple. Analogy instead of illustration: slat = beam. At three seconds: Japan, wood, order. From five metres: four orange blocks and emptiness.
6. Why exactly this way — a museum poster, one colour. A constraint turned into an idea: if there's no money for an image, the letter must be the image. That's why the letter is constructed, not picked from a catalogue.
7. What would kill it — a photograph of the temple behind the letters. Or: the same letters in solid black without gaps — the lattice disappears, leaving only a thick headline.

Principles: analogija-umjesto-ilustracije slovo-kao-konstrukcija bijeli-prostor-kao-oblik boja-kao-hijerarhija-ne-ukras v2 correction: the tag crno-bijelo-prije-boje does not apply to this work. Portrait: the PGDA record has a photograph of Hofmann (source Poster Collection 07) — use it for the portret field.

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1. What it is — a poster for the Basel city theatre; the message is literally "the number of subscribers is rising". Lithograph, 126.1 × 89.2 cm, printed by Frobenius AG Basel (MoMA 1480.2000, gift of the designer).
2. Composition — reading of the work (v2): black background; a mass of angular human figures (pictograms made of sharp strokes, arms raised, mid-stride) climbs diagonally from bottom-left to top-right, in stepped rows that thicken and overlap toward the top. "Growth" is neither an arrow nor a diagram but a multiplying crowd climbing — the audience itself is the graph. The figures occupy ~70% of the surface; the text sits in the corners the figures leave free. The eye follows the diagonal of the figures, then goes to STADT THEATER BASEL at top right.
3. Colour — reading of the work (v2): black + one grey-blue for the figures + white text. The figures are light on black: theatre = darkness, audience = light. One colour works both as tone (grey) and as temperature (cool blue).
4. Typography — reading of the work (v2): linear grotesque, light cut, white; "Die Abonnentenzahl steigt" top left, STADT/THEATER/BASEL in three lines top right, "Spielzeitbeginn 17. Sept." centre right, small programme text bottom right, and "Stadt Theater Basel" rotated 90° along the left edge — text as the edge of the format. The typography doesn't compete with the figures: small point size, lots of space. Typeface not to be named.
5. Message — the institution boasts about a number. What's interesting is that it's not an advert but a report — a poster as public announcement, a form that today practically no longer exists.
6. Why exactly this way — large-format lithograph, one colour pass, a theatre with a consistent visual identity across seasons.
7. What would kill it — an arrow or a graph. Or: the figures evenly spaced — without the thickening toward the top there's no growth, just a pattern. v1 correction: he does use a pictogram, but a pictogram in multiplicity and in a density gradient — so it's composition, not icon.

Principles: tacka-linija-ploha brzina-je-ponavljanje-i-pomak strelica-i-dijagonala-kao-kretanje mnozina-kao-dijagram Resolved v2: growth = sequence + density gradation, not a tonal gradient. Same principle as Huber's Monza (repetition + shift) — here used for statistics instead of speed.

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MoMA zapis · PGDA

1. What it is — poster for a classical ballet (outdoor performance), Basler Freilichtspiele, 1959. Photolithograph, 127.6 × 90.1 cm, printed by Wassermann A.G. Basel (MoMA 380.1963, gift of the designer).
2. Composition — the archive describes it through point, line and shape, while simultaneously carrying opposing ideas (simple/complex). From v1 (verified against the image): blurred motion of the dancer's body as a soft grey gesture against hard typography. The eye enters the soft, then stops on the hard — that is the whole piece. reading of the work (v2) — addition on position: black ground; a blurred dancer occupying roughly the right ~60% of the width, a vertical white trace running almost the full height; the word "Giselle" rotated 90°, reading bottom to top, along the left edge, large; small details (Basler Freilichtspiele, dates, Rosenfeldpark) top left. Two verticals — soft (body) and hard (word) — stand side by side, not overlapping.
3. Colour — reading of the work (v2): black and white only, no other colour. The grey scale comes solely from photographic blur.
4. Typography — reading of the work (v2): linear grotesque, capital G + lowercase, one line, rotated — the rotation is what equates the word with the figure (both are "upright gestures"). Typeface: Akzidenz-Grotesk — confirmed, Fonts In Use (uses/1328, Staff Pick).
5. Message — ballet, but not through a picture of a dancer: through the trace of movement. At three seconds: motion. At five metres: a grey field against a sharp letter, and it works.
6. Why exactly this way — long-exposure photography is a cheap way to get a shape that cannot be drawn. The lithographic craft gives him confidence that the grey scale won't fall apart in print.
7. What would kill it — sharpening the dancer. The piece becomes a photograph of a performance, and the only contrast holding it together disappears.

Principles: zrno-i-zamucenje-kao-oblik jedna-osa-kontrasta figura-podloga tekst-rotiran-kao-figura Resolved v2: blur ~60% of width, text rotated along the left edge, no other colour.

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1. What it is — season poster for the Stadttheater Basel, 1963. Offset lithograph, 127.6 × 90.1 cm (MoMA 384.1963, gift of the designer).
2. Composition — reading of the work (v2): black ground; five photographed hands in gestures (spread, pointing, grasping…), scattered across the whole format without a grid, each turned differently. The hands are shot so that only the rim light shows — outlines of white edges on black, the interior dark (solarisation or backlight). No body, no face: theatre = gesture. The text is small, centre-left, in a "gap" among the hands. The eye wanders from hand to hand — the composition deliberately has no centre, like a conversation in hands. To be viewed as part of a series (63/64, 64/65, 1967).
3. Colour — reading of the work (v2): black and white + a single orange-red used only for the text (63/64 and STADT THEATER BASEL). The colour doesn't touch the image; it exists so the tiny text can be found at all.
4. Typography — reading of the work (v2): minimal. "63/64" with a slash as a fraction and STADT/THEATER/BASEL in three short lines, linear grotesque, very small relative to the format (~3% of height). A 127 cm poster with text meant to be read from a metre away — because you recognise the image from twenty. Specific typeface not named.
5. Message — the season, not an individual production. That changes the task: the poster has to signal the institution, not the content.
6. Why exactly this way — a decade-long collaboration with the same client allows each subsequent poster to build on the previous one. That's a luxury almost no one has today.
7. What would kill it — putting in photographs from the season's productions. The institution would disappear behind the programme.

Principles: serija-kao-identitet fragment-tijela-kao-institucija boja-samo-u-tekstu Resolved v2: see the series conclusion at work 06.

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1. What it is — season poster, photolithograph, 127 × 90.2 cm (MoMA 271.1965, gift of the designer). Season slogan: theatre as a mirror of time.
2. Composition — reading of the work (v2): an almost white poster — the reverse of 63/64. On a light ground, a barely visible, high-key photograph: a thin rectangular mirror frame (right half, slightly tilted) and in/around it a face dissolving into grey, large, cropped by the edge of the format. Mirror of time: the face isn't clearly visible because it's time that is being mirrored. Text top left and in the left column, everything left-aligned, the text column and the frame's edge sharing the same vertical. The eye: title → down the column → frame → the face that only appears once you stop.
3. Colour — reading of the work (v2): no colour. Only the upper half of the grey scale — from white to mid-grey, with no black except in the title. Black is reserved for three words; the image mustn't be darker than the text.
4. Typography — reading of the work (v2): "Stadt / Theater / Basel" in three lines, semi-bold cut of a linear grotesque, top left, ~8% of height; below, in the same left column, small season text ("Saison 1964/65 · Theater als Zeitspiegel" + a paragraph). The text is the only solid element on the poster — everything else is fog. Specific typeface not named.
5. Message — the season's abstract thesis, not a list of productions. This calls for an image that is a metaphor, not a scene — the same problem as Müller-Brockmann's concert poster, solved with photography instead of geometry.
6. Why exactly this way — technique: photolithography at this format allows a full tonal range; he uses it as material, not as reproduction.
7. What would kill it — boosting the contrast of the image "so it can be seen." The entire idea is that the face is barely visible; one click on Levels and it becomes an ordinary portrait in a mirror. v1 correction: the tension isn't "from white to black" but from white to grey — the piece deliberately does not use the lower half of the scale.

Principles: zrno-i-zamucenje-kao-oblik figura-podloga citljivost-na-granici visoki-kljuc-kao-poruka Resolved v2: motif = mirror + a disappearing face; three tonal zones (white, light grey, mid-grey) + black only in the title; text in left column.

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1. What it is — poster for the Stadttheater Basel. Offset lithograph, 127.6 × 90.1 cm, printed by Wassermann A.G. Basel (MoMA 139.1968, gift of the designer). The shift from lithography to offset across the series is visible as a technological trace — the same hand, a different machine.
2. Composition — reading of the work (v2): light ground; a large actor's face in a grimace (eyes bulging, mouth open) emerges from the bottom edge and occupies the lower two thirds, cropped on all sides — the face appears doubled, as if two exposures or a mask over a face. The grain is coarse, the contrast high: this is the "lower half of the scale" that 64/65 avoided. Top third: air, small text at top and a title centre-left, sitting exactly above the forehead — the title sits on the head. A thin vertical line drops from the top along the title like a plumb line.
3. Colour — reading of the work (v2): black-and-white photograph + red used only in the title (and the small text). The same formula as 63/64 (colour = text, image = grey scale), except the ground is white instead of black.
4. Typography — reading of the work (v2): "Stadt / theater / Basel" in three lines, a light cut of a linear grotesque, lowercase for "theater" (small letters, only Stadt and Basel capitalised), red, ~7% of height; two small paragraphs at top. Specific typeface not named.
5. Message — an institutional signature; by 1967, the Stadttheater is recognised by Hofmann's hand before the name is even read. The face in grimace = the actor, not the role; theatre as a body that contorts itself.
6. Why exactly this way — offset in 1967 means faster and cheaper, but also a different treatment of tone than stone lithography; anyone looking at the series can see how the pressure and grain change.
7. What would kill it — breaking the series with a redesign. The value lies in twenty years of repetition, not in a single piece.

Principles: serija-kao-identitet jedna-osa-kontrasta zrno-i-zamucenje-kao-oblik Resolved v2 — what the series repeats and what it varies (63/64 · 64/65 · 1967): - Repeats: format 127 × 90; a single photographic fragment of the body (hands / face in the mirror / face in grimace) without a set and without costume; the grey scale carries the image; text small, left-aligned, in three lines; colour only in the text (orange/red) or none at all. - Varies: the key of the tonal scale — black ground (63/64) → almost white (64/65) → white with hard black (1967); the amount of body shown (five hands → one disappearing face → one attacking face). The series is a single axis (hard/soft, dark/light) run through three seasons. That's the answer to "what repeats": the rule, not the look.

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MoMA zapis 1964 · MoMA zapis GM 1967, bez slike

v2 correction: the work „GM" (1967, MoMA 110.2015) has no image or client in the record. The same initials appear on a poster from 1964 with a full record and image — GM is Gewerbe-Museum Basel, which resolves the client question for 1967 as well (as a very likely, not confirmed, assumption). The analysis proceeds on 1964.

1. What it is — poster for the exhibition „Architekturtheoretische Werke" from the Gewerbemuseum Basel collections. Lithograph, 127.6 × 90.5 cm, printer Wassermann A.G. Basel (MoMA 1479.2000, gift of the designer).
2. Composition — reading of the work (v2): the upper ~70% is a black field, in it enormous white letters G and M, both cut off by the edge (G on the left, M on the right) — the letters are larger than the format. Inside the letters, as through a window, photographs of objects from the collection (lace/textile in the lower part of the G, books and a glass in the M). The letter isn't a sign but an opening through which the museum is seen. The bottom 30%: a white band, three short blocks of text left-aligned to ~30% of the width. Eye path: G → M → objects within them → text below. The letter is first recognised as a letter, and only then as an image — that's its "threshold of legibility" put into practice.
3. Colour — reading of the work (v2): black and white only; photographs in greyscale inside the letters. The black ground makes the letters light, the photographs give tone — three layers of value without a single colour.
4. Typography — reading of the work (v2): G and M in an extra-black cut of a linear grotesque, ~55% of the format's height; small text below in a light cut, three blocks, spacing between blocks equal to one blank line. Ratio of large to small size roughly 1 : 25. The specific typeface not confirmed.
5. Message — a museum of applied art shows its name and its collection at the same time, in one stroke. From five metres: GM. From one metre: lace, books, glass. Two posters in one, depending on distance.
6. Why exactly this way — the museum has objects but no budget for colour; the two-letter initial is large enough to become a container for a photograph. Cutting it off with the edge is what makes the letter monumental without enlarging the format.
7. What would kill it — whole letters within the format, with a margin. It would become a logo on a poster; as it is, the poster is inside the logo.

Principles: citljivost-na-granici slovo-kao-prozor odsjeci-rubom-za-mjerilo crno-bijelo-prije-boje Remaining: for GM 1967 confirm the client (probably the same museum).

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1. What it is — a textbook (Niggli, 1965). Not about style but about point, line and plane and the relations between them.
2. Composition — the book is a series of exercises: one element, then two, then a relation; every page is proof of a single perceptual stance.
3. Colour — mostly black and white, consistent with the thesis that colour comes after.
4. Typography — grotesque, stripped down; the typography in the book doesn't show itself off.
5. Message — this isn't learned by looking at styles but by looking at relations. That's why the book has survived every change in technology since 1965.
6. Why exactly this way — pedagogy: the exercises have to be doable by hand, with the smallest possible means, so the student can see the cause.
7. What would kill it — replacing the exercises with examples of "good design". It would become a collection of taste instead of a set of tools.

Principles: tacka-linija-ploha odnos-prije-oblika To verify against the image: — (not needed for this work; get the book)

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