The Picture-Writer. Warja Lavater, Graphic Designer and Illustrator

This project investigates the work of the graphic designer and artist, Warja Lavater, an internationally recognised Swiss graphic designer, illustrator, bookmaker, filmmaker and artist.

Research project (2025) with Jonas Berthod, Davide Fornari

Researcher: Carol Ribi
Image credit: Warja Lavater, Le Petit Chaperon Rouge. Talant (Côte-d'Or) : les Doigts qui rêvent. © Bibliothèque Méjanes, CC BY-SA 2.0
Know-how: Illustration, Editorial

Amongst Warja Lavater’s (Winterthur, 28 September 1913 – Zurich, 3 May 2007) most famous designs is the three-key logo for the Swiss bank UBS, which the bank – then named Schweizerischen Bankverein – began using in 1938. Yet Lavater is far much more than these three keys. Although the emblem is known the world over and her work was appreciated internationally during her career, recognition in Switzerland came late, overshadowed notably by her more well-known husband, the designer and artist Gottfried Honegger. For instance, it was only in the 1990s that the Canton Zurich awarded her the art prize for her lifetime work. The scholarship on her work has accordingly been sparse; the present research corrects this gap.

During her extensive career, Lavater created posters, logos, packaging, illustrations, installations for exhibitions and artworks. She is especially known for her many experimental artist books and what she called “folded stories”, a series of leporellos (accordion-style publications) adapting familiar tales as well as new stories in a pictorial manner. These books used a formal vocabulary based on a drawing system devised by the designer, which translated complex stories into symbols and signs. To describe her work on these publications, the designer coined the term Bildstellerin, a portmanteau which translates as “picture-writer”.

By documenting her oeuvre, the research is not only going to improve the scholarship on a designer, but also more widely contribute to the historiography on female graphic designers in the 20th century, whose contributions remain largely understudied and overshadowed by their male counterparts. The research also contributes to a lesser-known side of Swiss graphic design history by providing scholarship on a designer working outside the canon of the Swiss Style. The results are presented in a richly illustrated publication which makes available previously unpublished visual material and represents the first academic monograph on the designer.

Main applicant: Jonas Berthod
Research team: Davide Fornari
Carol Ribi
Period: 1.2.2025 – 31.3.2026
Supported by: HES-SO, Réseau de Compétences Design et Arts Visuels RCDAV

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