Piet Zwart facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Piet Zwart
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 28 May 1885 Zaandijk, Netherlands
|
| Died | 24 September 1977 (aged 92) Wassenaar, Netherlands
|
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Education | Architect, Photographer |
| Known for | Typographer, Graphic designer, photographer, Industrial designer |
|
Notable work
|
NKF Catalog, Book of PTT |
| Awards | Designer of the 20th Century by Association of Dutch Designers |
Piet Zwart (born May 28, 1885 – died September 24, 1977) was a famous Dutch artist. He was a photographer, a typographer (someone who designs how text looks), and an industrial designer (someone who designs products for factories).
Contents
About Piet Zwart
His Early Life
Piet Zwart was born in Zaandijk, Netherlands, on May 28, 1885. He first trained to be an architect, which means he learned to design buildings. This training also taught him how to design furniture and the inside of rooms.
When he was 36, he started working on graphic design projects. He was inspired by a style called De Stijl, which focused on simple shapes, colors, and lines. Later, he moved towards a more practical design style.
His Education
From 1902 to 1907, Zwart studied at the National School of Applied Arts in Amsterdam. There, he learned about many art subjects, like painting and architecture. He also learned about the English Arts and Crafts movement, which valued handmade items and traditional skills.
Later, he taught drawing and art history in Leeuwarden. In 1913, he went back to study at the Delft University of Technology.
Later in Life
In 1919, Piet Zwart began teaching at the Rotterdam Academy of Visual Arts. He also continued to work as an independent designer. However, he was let go from teaching in 1933 because his ideas about education were seen as too new or "radical."
His ideas were similar to those taught at the Bauhaus art school in Germany. He even gave guest lectures there in 1929.
In 1930, Zwart was asked to design "The Book of PTT." This book was made to teach children how to use the Dutch postal service. He wanted the book to be exciting and encourage kids to be curious.
The book was full of bright colors and different fonts. He created two characters, 'The Post' and 'J Self,' using paper cut-outs that he photographed. He then added details with chalk, ink, and colored pencils. The book was published in 1938.
During World War II, in 1942, Zwart's design work stopped. He was arrested by the German forces and held in a camp with many other important people. He was set free in 1945 when the war ended. After the war, he mainly focused on industrial design.
Piet Zwart passed away in 1977 when he was 92 years old. The Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam is named after him to honor his work.
His Design Style
Piet Zwart was a leader in modern typography, which is the art of arranging type. He was well known for his work for the Dutch cable factory (Nederlandse Kabelfabriek Delft) and the Dutch postal service. He didn't follow old typography rules. Instead, he used ideas from constructivism and "De Stijl" in his designs.
His work often used primary colors, geometric shapes, repeated words, and an early form of photomontage. Photomontage is when you combine different photographs to create a new image. His designs were also playful.
In the 1920s, he worked for the cable factory. He experimented with different letter sizes, lines, circles, and how letters were placed. He made 275 designs for them in ten years. After that, he started designing interiors, industrial products, and furniture. Zwart called himself a 'typotect,' meaning he was part typographer and part architect.
His Working Career
Piet Zwart is most famous for his graphic design work. He started his career as an architect and draftsman. He worked for famous architects like Jan Wils and Berlage in the early 1900s.
Flooring Company Work
In 1920, he got a job from the Vickers House flooring company. He created several advertisements for them. For one ad, he solved a printing problem by putting together letters, blank spaces, and symbols from print shops.
NKF Catalog Designs
In 1923, he started working for the Nederlandsche Kabelfabriek (NKF), a cable factory in Delft. He had experimented with typography before, but at NKF, he realized he didn't know much about printing terms. An 18-year-old assistant at NKF helped him learn the basics of printing.
He created 275 designs for NKF over ten years, mostly typographical works. He played with small and large letters, circles, rectangles, and repeated patterns. He left NKF in 1933 to focus on designing interiors, industrial products, and furniture.
Photography Work
Zwart began using photographs in his designs in 1926. He worked with professional photographers at first. He tried to balance the flat text with the three-dimensional images. The photos he used often had strong contrast, negative images, and were sometimes printed with colored inks or cut into geometric shapes.
In 1928, he bought his own camera and taught himself photography. His photographs show his love for repetition, structure, lines, and balance. While working for the NKF catalog, he experimented with photography by taking close-up pictures of electric cables.
Stamps 1931
-
Stamps 1931
Stained glass Gouda -
Wilhelmina stamp
-
Wilhelmina stamp
-
Design Wilhelmina stamp (1931)
Industrial Design
Before World War II, there was a lot of new design work happening in the Netherlands. Designers were looking for new ways to solve practical problems. In 1938, Zwart designed a kitchen made of separate parts that could be put together. This "prefabricated" kitchen changed how kitchen interiors were designed and showed how useful mass-produced items could be.
In 1930, Zwart worked for the Bruynzeel Company. He designed their yearly calendars and other commercial items. He also helped in other areas of the company. He was the first person to design a kitchen that could be mass-produced in factories.
Zwart is most famous for his design of the Bruynzeel modular kitchen in 1937. This kitchen design was very advanced for its time and is still available today. It showed how design could be organized like a graphic layout.
Awards
In 2000, Piet Zwart was given the "Designer of the Century" award by the Association of Dutch Designers. This award recognized his important contributions to design throughout the 20th century.
See also
In Spanish: Piet Zwart para niños
