Brissago
Always me in the raincoat! With Mama Ferrari and our class, summer 1981.
A lucky aspect of going to school where I did (Carnegie-Mellon, Pittsburgh), when I did (BFA 1981) was the chance to attend the Yale Graphic Design workshop in Brissago, which was held from 1977 to 1996. Brissago, Switzerland, is a tiny storybook village strung along the edge of Lago Maggiore, very near the border with Italy. This was the summer home of Armin and Dorothea Hofmann, and so that is where these between-semesters workshops took place.
As a design educator at the Basel School of Arts and Crafts, Armin Hofmann advanced the practice of the International style of graphic design. His 1965 book, Graphic Design Manual: Principles and Practice, became part of teaching canon. Wolfgang Weingart joined the faculty as well, bringing his wildly contemporary way of working with graphic arts processes and typography. Both teachers were on hand for the 1981 workshop.
At the five-week workshop, the pace was intense, yet the atmosphere was collaborative and relaxed. Working with tools of the trade at that time – illustration board, Plaka paint, glue and scissors, compasses and ruling pens, gouache and rubber cement – the class crafted responses to weekly briefs. Armin Hofmann led the workshop; Wolfgang Weingart, Paul Rand and Herbert Matter were guest lecturers that summer (no pressure!). Phillip Burton, coordinator for the workshop, led a photo exploration that set us all loose in the landscape to pick a theme and develop it, and ferried us to an island villa to abstract a landscape en plein aire one afternoon.
The class gathered for family-style meals together in the evenings, giving the group a chance to really knit together over generous platters of food, stories, and laughs. Everyone left the table content, a little tipsy, and stuffed – Mama Ferrari is surely in heaven now, loading up celestial plates with seconds!
Interpreting Joan Miró for Paul Rand. Ruling pens and Pantone paper, anyone?
Herbert Matter and Paul Rand passed some years ago, and this year the design community said heartfelt goodbyes to both Armin Hofmann and Wolfgang Weingart. They will each be remembered and appreciated for generously sharing their genius with student designers.
Just writing this look-back today sparks the thought: do your own workshop somewhere? Get up a group of artist friends to plop down in a beautiful spot and create, for some stretch of summer? Could happen. But, could it ever match your first weekend in Florence longing to instantly become Italian, lakeside train journeys with open windows in summer twilight, hitching a ride from a young German-speaking dude in a Porsche? Never mind the time spent with design luminaries on their off hours. Nah, can’t happen! Brissago was truly once in a lifetime.