Summer 2006  The birth of Swiss graphic design  Swiss Graphic
Design: The Origins  By Richard Hollis. Laurence King, £35  It
was in an attempt to clarify the meaning of language as arising
from its use, that Ludwig Wittgenstein famously asked the
question: ‘how many kinds of sentence are there?’ His response
was that ‘there are countless kinds: countless different kinds
of use of what we call “symbols”, “words”, “sentences”.’
Furthermore, ‘this multiplicity is not something fixed, given
once for all; but new types of language, new language games, as
we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and
get forgotten.’ The same could equally be said of graphic
design. We use graphics to communicate orders, to impart
information, to entertain, to promote and publicise. As with all
languages, as new forms of design come into being, earlier forms
are perceived as outdated. Ultimately, there is no one rule
applicable to all forms of design. Obviously, to carry
Wittgenstein’s analysis further, this does n