Bobst Graphic 1972–1981

At the beginning of the 1970s, Bobst, a packaging company already far advanced in packaging manufacture, decided to start to sell its photocomposition machines with a view, amongst other things, to improving Swiss typographical quality. It started to manufacture a series of innovative photocomposition machines, patented by their French inventors, Hugonnet and Moyroud.

Bobst Graphic products, with their streamlined service and close collaboration with first-rate researchers, soon came to occupy a secure position in photocomposition, now called on to assume the mantle of a hundred-year-old traditional profession.

Numerous families of typographical characters were developed, some from scratch, with the help of many of the best graphic artists in the country, some, like Team 77, which boasted international renown.

Despite the energy invested in these new inventions, and the signal advantage enjoyed by this division with its considerable in-house talents, the company faced stiff competition internationally, almost exclusively from the United States. Ultimately, financial difficulties obliged the firm to hand over its project to Autologic, an American company.

We are able, by exhibiting this archive, to tell a story which might never have received the attention it truly deserves within the context of Swiss graphic design.