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Karl Gerstner. Geigy heute. Basel: Birkhäuser, 1958

“The jubilee book Geigy heute is a model of Swiss typography. It shows the nearly square format in a binding with a flat spine, the flush text in a sans serif type, the black and white photos overprinted with transparent areas of colour, and a layout clearly based on a grid. And the innovative diagrams are also notable. The design department of the Basel chemical company Geigy had a name to uphold with their printed matter. Enthusiastic articles about the ‘Geigy style’ appeared in international design magazines beginning in the early fifties.”

Mathieu Lommen. The book of books: 500 years of graphic innovation. Thames & Hudson, 2012 (p. 380)

“The format of the book is nearly square, and it is bound by a thin parchment spine. The copious information on the internal organization of the company is presented in diagrams, main colors designate the black and white photographs to divisions within the company and reappear in the product overview at the end of the book. A four-color section features photographs, mostly by René Groebli. Unusual for the time is the unjustified typesetting, which enlivens the white space of the 230 pages. Geigy heute became a milestone of book design and information design that was soon to be admired internationally.”

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Andres Janser, Barbara Junod (eds.). Corporate diversity: Swiss graphic design and advertising by Geigy, 1940-1970. Baden: Lars Müller, 2009 (p. 196)

Geigy heute was the first extensive deployment of Swiss graphic and typographic skills to guide the reader through a mass of information, showing where things were, what they did, and how they were related (...) Geigy heute not only exemplified the new Swiss book design -square format, square backed binding, headings and text typeset in unjustified grotesque- it also set new standards for information design in its statistical charts, ingenious diagrams of management structures and departmental organization.”

Richard Hollis. Swiss graphic design: the origins and growth of an international style, 1920-1965. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006 (p. 228, 229)

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