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Industrial Arts  Volume 1   Issue: 3  Autumn 1936  Page: 232
 
 Development of Form in Advertising By Xanti Schawinski
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Schawinsky, Xanti (‘Xanti’) [1904-1979. Switzerland/Italy. Graphic/Poster/Theatre Set Designer/Photographer]
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DEVELOPMENT OF FORM IN ADVERTISING

By XANTI SCHAWINSKI
 
Inside Spread of a Folder for Oliver Typewriter designed by Xanti. It is a fine example of the documentary as opposed to the theatrical in advertising. When the reader has finished there is nothing of importance about the typewriter that he does not know. The original is printed in black, green and maroon.
Industrial Arts  Volume 1   Issue: 3  Autumn 1936  Page: 233
 
 Development of Form in Advertising By Xanti Schawinski
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Schawinsky, Xanti (‘Xanti’) [1904-1979. Switzerland/Italy. Graphic/Poster/Theatre Set Designer/Photographer]
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ADVERTISING WHICH APPEALS EFFECTIVELY TO THE eye is a formal medium of understanding between producer and consumer. It is at the service of all that is new, whether in the realm of ideas (as propaganda), or in the sphere of commerce (as advertising) and its task is not only to enlighten, to inform and to transmit new conceptions to the public in an effective form — but also to conquer them, to convince them, even to carry them away. No means can be too uncommon to be put to these uses. The gigantic may as easily lead to the desired end as the exquisitely miniature, monotony as well as variability may serve the purpose, the bright richness or the delicate pallor of the colour scheme... the never-ending procession in quick march step compels the propagandist to throw the conventional to the winds, that he may spread the wings of his spirit unencumbered by ballast.

What is his inner participation in such “art”? He must accept it in his heart, that is a necessary preliminary. Only one who stands firmly rooted in the midst of all that goes on around him has the right to tread the other-world of intellectual order. Elementary study of matter and of organic effects and causes is as inseparable from creative achievement as soul and body. This symbiosis is a further preliminary of free creation, based upon which the imagination has greater opportunities of free expansion.

The advertiser is daily forced by the necessity of penetrating the specialism of modern technics and building pontoon bridges to the necessities of life. Just as our era of technical progress and fearless thought is imbued with a new spirit, so advertising also has something to gain; its means of expression have been clarified and refined. The advertiser turns to technics instead of to mysticism — to the precise instead of to the monumental — to realism instead of symbolism — to the logical instead of the flamboyant and pretentious — to the functional instead of to ornament — to the documentary instead of the theatrical. To-day we confront the finished “style”, the mechanical “manner” with something else which is the pure spiritual expression of a fearless exploration of the depths — of trying to learn the nature of things, analysing, basing the new upon an elementary foundation — of discontent with the ready-to-hand and the mere imitation of outward form — so that earnest research and playful experiment combine to create the new face of advertising.

The new field of thought opened up by psycho-analysis and the expansive spatial tensions of abstract painting have given large new impulses to advertising. The means of expression have been almost unthinkably enriched by technical discoveries. The fruitful collaboration of technics with the composition of form has
Industrial Arts  Volume 1   Issue: 3  Autumn 1936  Page: 234
 
 Development of Form in Advertising By Xanti Schawinski
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Schawinsky, Xanti (‘Xanti’) [1904-1979. Switzerland/Italy. Graphic/Poster/Theatre Set Designer/Photographer]
Captions:
 
An exceedingly fine propaganda booklet by Xanti for the State of Magdeburg. The illustration cannot convey what an effective piece of documentation it is. It is Spirax bound, and the cover is a seascape pattern printed in blue and varnished. It has a celluloid overlay, printed on either side in white. The interior gives in diagrammatic form the most complete information of the economic advantages offered by the State.
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An exceedingly fine propaganda booklet by Xanti for the State of Magdeburg. The illustration cannot convey what an effective piece of documentation it is. It is Spirax bound, and the cover is a seascape pattern printed in blue and varnished. It has a celluloid overlay, printed on either side in white. The interior gives in diagrammatic form the most complete information of the economic advantages offered by the State.
Industrial Arts  Volume 1   Issue: 3  Autumn 1936  Page: 235
 
 Development of Form in Advertising By Xanti Schawinski
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Schawinsky, Xanti (‘Xanti’) [1904-1979. Switzerland/Italy. Graphic/Poster/Theatre Set Designer/Photographer]
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POSTERS BY XANTI
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opened up a new playing-field of fancy. The song of colour, the chords of colour composition lead us on to the music of matter. Let us consider the methods and materials which technique has placed at our disposal; they are distinguished by exactness, lightness and elegance and by a singular transparency. We have coloured mirrors, galalite, cellophane, the delicate aluminium skeleton of the Zeppelins, neon light, chromium plating, photography and the cinematograph, speech and song resolved into thin lines, the technique of the autotype, television, vulcanite, bent steel tubing, sprayed and molten enamel, colours of translucent light, sheets of pierced tin, reinforced glass... these are but a few examples of the new scale of matter, but they ring true and are components of a new spirit. The inner compulsion to overcome gravity and to disintegrate the cube arises from new relations to space, which find expression in a spatial perspective of piling-up, penetration, and super-imposition. The consequence is that we have a transparent verticality instead of the juxtaposition of rigidly limited forms; realisation of colour in the third dimension; dynamic collaboration of picture, word and construction in space.

Advertising as a factor of form is still young and at the beginning of a development. Trammelled to time, it must needs work with an ordered exactness in which the personal note must give way to the super-personal. It is thus in the midst of a peculiar process: behind the scholastic demonstration and the reduction of the complicated to the elementary, apparently simple presentation, stands Imagination the organiser, building up a “functional” form of advertising.
Industrial Arts  Volume 1   Issue: 3  Autumn 1936  Page: 236
 
 Development of Form in Advertising By Xanti Schawinski
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Schawinsky, Xanti (‘Xanti’) [1904-1979. Switzerland/Italy. Graphic/Poster/Theatre Set Designer/Photographer]
Captions:
 
Graphics by Xanti Schawinsky
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THE OLD PATRIARCHAL FAMILY

One Productive Unit
Industrial Arts  Volume 1   Issue: 3  Autumn 1936  Page: 237
 
 Development of Form in Advertising By Xanti Schawinski
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Schawinsky, Xanti (‘Xanti’) [1904-1979. Switzerland/Italy. Graphic/Poster/Theatre Set Designer/Photographer]
Captions:
 
Demonstration at Exhibition of Architecture, Berlin, 1931. Designed by Xanti Schawinski
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Demonstration at Exhibition of Architecture, Berlin, 1931. Designed by Xanti Schawinski