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❖ Design styles

Swiss style

스위스 스타일

A rigorous grid, flush-left ragged-right type, and grotesque sans-serifs like Helvetica — a 1950s Swiss typographic tradition built for clarity.

Also known as: International Typographic Style
···
html
<div class="page">
  <div class="rule"></div>
  <h1>TYPE<br/>IS THE<br/>MESSAGE</h1>
  <div class="meta"><span>NO. 07</span><span>1957</span><span>BASEL</span></div>
</div>
css
body{background:#fff}
.page{width:min(90%,300px);padding:8px 2px;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;position:relative}
.rule{position:absolute;left:0;top:0;width:6px;height:0;background:#d81e05;animation:grow 2.4s ease-in-out infinite}
@keyframes grow{0%{height:0}50%{height:100%}100%{height:100%}}
h1{margin:0 0 18px 20px;font-size:clamp(26px,7.5vmin,40px);font-weight:800;line-height:.98;letter-spacing:-.01em;color:#111}
.meta{margin-left:20px;display:flex;gap:16px;font-size:10px;letter-spacing:.12em;color:#d81e05;font-weight:700}

Established by graphic designers in Basel and Zürich, Switzerland in the 1950s, also called the "International Typographic Style" for its aim of a universal standard. The goal was clarity of information, not decoration, and the tools were a mathematical grid system, flush-left ragged-right type (natural word spacing, no forced justification), and a documentary use of photography.

It favored grotesque sans-serifs — most famously Helvetica, released in 1957 — on the theory that a neutral typeface keeps attention on content rather than the letterforms' personality. Red, black and white dominate the palette, and whitespace is treated as part of the grid, not leftover space.

It's still alive in academic journals, museum signage and airline identities (the old Swissair), and on the web it reappears as a strict column grid, a restrained palette, and a type scale with strong size contrast. Massimo Vignelli's New York City subway signage belongs to this same lineage.

When to use

Good for document-style sites, magazines and data-heavy pages where accurate information transfer is the point. It can feel too cold for brands leading with emotion.