Paperback 184 pages
Publisher: MCAD
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9072007816
ISBN-13: 9780980089301
Product Dimensions: 23 x 16 cm
Release Date: 2007
Price: sold
Peter Seitz (1931–2023), born in Switzerland, stands as a pivotal figure in the history of American information design and visual communication. Long before the digital era, he advanced a design methodology grounded in information structure and systems thinking—an approach that would later become foundational to contemporary design practice.
Educated at Ulm and Yale, and trained under Max Bill and Otl Aicher, Seitz absorbed the rigor of Swiss modernism while expanding its reach. The book documents numerous exercises and studio works from his Ulm period, revealing the early formation of a mind shaped by clarity, order, and experimental precision.
Swiss Style = design as information structure and system architecture in the United States.
Influenced by Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann, Seitz carried the grid, logic, and typographic discipline of Swiss Style into the American context, where he redefined it as a framework for information systems. In doing so, he became a central conduit through which modernist principles were transformed into instruments of analysis, organization, and communication.
Seitz later became the first Design Director at the Walker Art Center—a landmark appointment marking the introduction of a design department within an American art institution. The visual infrastructure he established at the Walker would echo throughout Design Quarterly, shaping the museum’s identity as a site where design operates not as ornament, but as a mode of thought.
Peter Seitz: Designing a Life offers the most comprehensive view of his work and intellectual legacy, positioning him as a quiet but decisive force in the evolution of system-based design in the United States.