The new family centre is called allesamt. This pleasant-sounding term is a reference to the communal aspect by the place. To create short, easily remembered names for the spaces, the names of areas in the town were used in a counting rhyme that children are very familiar with: Be La Gu – Ro Ha Ru – Mo Ma Hei – und du bisch frei!. Made from just two or three letters, these names now also stand for the different activities and the rooms in the building that are used for them. To impress them on the memory and to appeal to the natural delight in playing, these pictograms, flexible elements that can be rearranged, are mounted at a height where they can be easily reached. A start is made with the central food service area, where magnetic discs of different colours e wait on a plate to be rearranged, for instance to make a flower or an emoji, in the case of the areas for children’s naps, there are eyes that can be opened and closed, while for the sports room a football that can be rotated, in the oasis the letters surf on waves …

There are a few consistent symbols used for visual identification of pharmacies. We often see the serpent’s staff, originally the attribute of the god of medicine (Aesculapius) – sometimes used in relation to a stylized apothecary’s scale or twisted into the capital letter „A“ for the Austrian Chamber of Pharmacists. Internationally however, a green cross is commonly used to signify pharmacies and medical areas. This symbol serves Atelier Andrea Gassner as a visual building block for the appearance of the new pharmacy in Feldkirch-Tosters. Formal elements of the green cross are interwoven in the lettering „Apotheke Tosters“ itself, forming a striking word and picture mark.

Architecture means, above all, designing and giving form. The intention was that the client’s “core product” should not occupy the foreground of his own public profile too assertively. Atelier Andrea Gassner has been working for years for the well-known Zurich architect Roger Boltshauser. The concern is graphic design using the language of modern architecture. Clarity of form, unobtrusiveness and aesthetic appropriateness are the focus of the design, Entirely in the sense of German industrial designer Dieter Rams “less and more”. In a dynamically growing process printed material, business stationery, books and digital communication media are created for the architecture practice and partner businesses. Interaction and scalability are primary design means In the new media. Distance and approach as well as entry shape our perception of architecture. These dynamics provided the guideline for the new web design. Visitors are met by a wall of images; they come closer and enter the individual projects. The respective contents open up gradually with the self-scaling image grid. Searching and finding becomes a kind of virtual excursion to the project world of this successful Zurich team of architects.

“Am I a letter or an image?” Behind this question is a game consciously played with perception, or, to put it more precisely, the idea of a tilting image as a label. Our perception of letters conditions us to read signs as codes. Whereas with images it is the forms and colours that occupy the foreground of our perception The prestigiouis Swiss diamond-cutting business “Zipangu” was looking for a suitable trademark that would meet its exacting standards in terms of quality. Linking the letter “Z” to the crystalline form creates the picture of a diamond and a memorable image. By typologically developing the name to the same high standard Atelier Andrea Gassner created an original word-image trademark. The basic graphic design of the appearance and the various applications consistently pursue the aim for an elegant, one could almost say classic image. For example, the stationery was made using special printing stock with raised steel embossing and pop-up cards with individual concepts for portrait and product photography.

The logo is based on the idea of a seal. We are familiar with the seal as a form of certification that conveys commitment, security, and legality. The traditional circular shape, the coat of arms of the Austrian state as a national emblem, a modern font family and the names of three notary’s offices are the ingredients for a strong joint brand architecture. Differentiation is introduced by the different names and colours. Designed as responsive, the websites derive their life from “icons of navigation”. Theme-related illustrations function as a primary interactive guiding element of the graphic user interfaces. The photographs show authentically the personal aspects and the people behind the legal paragraphs Responsive web design means a design concept that is adaptable as regards both illustration and application, from the wide monitor to the small smartphone. And in both landscape and portrait format. In an age in which digital communication increasingly takes place on the smartphone, responsiveness is an important design factor.

For many people, the notary’s office is a “necessary evil” rather than a helpful service point for dealing with important things in life. This cooperation between different notaries takes a new path and presents itself as a modern service business. By creating an intelligent profile Atelier Andrea Gassner shows how contemporary corporate design can clearly convey the qualities of a serious and trustworthy business. The logo based on the idea of a seal. We are familiar with the seal as a form of certification that conveys commitment, security, and legality. The traditional circular shape, the Austrian state coat-of-arms as a national emblem, a modern font family and the names of the three notary’s offices are the ingredients for a strong joint brand architecture. Differentiation is introduced by the different names and colours. The modern visual language for graphic design, typography and photography in both print and web conveys sociability and openness and, at the same time, a sense of seriousness.

How should an architect communicate – his team, his achievements, his ideas? Architecture comes from a creative act. The creation itself should serve the architecture client and not, at least not excessively, the architect’s own presentation. With a calm, appropriate design Atelier Andrea Gassner creates a contemporary graphic ambiance for the way in which an Augsburg architecture practice presents itself to the public. The results are pragmatic signs, typographies, and functional concepts for visual communication. These are applied to the basic settings and project folders, to presentation charts and digital means of communication. In his introduction to semiotics Umberto Eco notes: “Once it is established that architecture can be regarded as a system of signs, it is, above all, these signs that must be characterised.”

Dr. Christoph Binder’s core area of competence lies in assisting small and medium-sized businesses aiming to internationalise their business. He communicates his knowledge and intercultural experience through reflective personal mentoring processes for staff and managers who wish to or must prepare themselves for deployment abroad. We placed the rounded, open “C” as a visual anchor at the centre of image. The dotted form symbolises the multi-national network of the business. When used digitally, the rows of dots in the logo are distinguished from each other by different shades of grey and sizes and can be activated by a cursor reaction. Alongside the symbol’s interactive »usability« the effect is a surprisingly three-dimensional development. In the printed form through the sharp-edged blind embossing the logo appears tactile, spatial and at the same time elegant. In typographic terms the logo is framed by type cuts from the typeface family »Scala« – a reinterpreted serif-stressed Renaissance-Antiqua by Dutch typeface designer Martin Majoor.

The contributions in this book deal with Lech as a place to live and an economic unit, with its natural setting and with the history and identity of the Walser people. The various authors were allowed to decide on the focal points of their contributions. The major design challenge lay in finding a uniform design framework for the scientifically-based contents and the variety of visual material. The strictly flush alignment of the double page ensures coherence. The generously sized edge column allows a variety of uses and provides the space needed for very different combinations of text and image. The Trinité family of fonts, a modern book antiqua by Bram de Does, determines the typography of the continuous text. For the marginalia and function texts Foundry Sans by David Quay and Freda Sack is used in a reduced size. The type design is differentiated and, despite the considerable density, can be read with comfort. The strict basic modulor is never a shackle but rather a support for an open book design that makes skilful used of the white area. The book core, which is worked through from the smallest detail to the large scale, is produced in excellent lithographic and print technique and finished and bound in a bibliophile manner. The book core is packed in a newly developed concept for the full linen front and back endpapers and in a dust jacket that can be “worn” on either side. It shows a photographic winter or summer motif from the Lech area, both of the same size.

The goal of the new cooperative venture »european wood« is the joint international advertising of wood. In designing the trade mark the properties and advantages of the raw and processed material wood suggested blending the double o with the symbol for infinity. Traditionally, the lemniscate is the symbol for the cycle of existence, symbolizing the loop from material to space and back again – an appropriate symbol for all that is living and natural. If you look at it quickly, while on the move or when it is used at a small scale the infinity symbol seems to become the letters oo. The logotype derives its characteristics and its visual wit from this semantic-semiotic play with the meaning of “wood” and the symbolic power of the horizontal eight. This ambivalence also appears in the claim of the British member of the association: “wood. for good.”