Piet Zwart

Dutch typographer, photographer and industrial designer

Piet Zwart (1885-1977) was a Dutch typographer, photographer and industrial designer. He was born in 1885 at Zaandijk in an industrial area north of Amsterdam.
Zwart studied at the National School for Applied Arts from 1902 till 1907. He took courses in architecture and drawing. After his study he went to Leeuwarden to teach at a school. In 1913 he moved to Voorburg and attended the Technical School in Delft 1913-1914. He was called into military service.

De Stijl

Frequently he met Jan Wils and Huszár and was influenced by them, but Zwart never joined De Stijl.
In 1919 Zwart worked as draftsman for Jan Wils' De Stijl company. Two years later he became assistant of architect H.P. Berlage. Zwart later wrote: "At that time the relationship of architect to co-worker was completely different from today. Assistants are now usually mentioned, at least if they are of any importance. In those days not, you were the humble employee, the architect was your employer and the relationship was quite fixed."

Typographic work

At the age of 36 Zwart did his first typographic work for the Dutch representative of the importer Vickers House. In 1923 Berlage introduced Zwart to the cable manufacturer N.V. Nederlandsche Kabelfabriek (NKF). Zwart rejected traditional typographic conventions, choosing instead to apply the formal principles of constructivism and De Stijl to Dutch commercial design. The relationship with NKF lasted till 1933. During these ten years he produced 275 advertisements and the publication "Sterkstroom" (Strong Current). Later Zwart explained how he learned from these orders: "Actually, that's how I came to understand the typographic profession, I didn't know the terms, I didn't know the methods, I didn't even know the difference between capitals and lower case letters."
Concerned to attract the attention of the customer, Zwart's experimented exuberant with bold sans serif lettering, repetitive word patterns, strong diagonals, and an early use of photomontage.

Graphic design company

By the time he was forty, Piet Zwart's increasing involvement with graphic design enabled him to leave Berlage and establish his own practice. Piet Zwart had other clients in addition to NKF. The most important was PTT (Dutch Post Office Telephone and Telegraph Service). He produced five stamps and some publicity booklets.
His intuitive and elegant manipulation of typographic elements, combined with a preference for the De Stijl primary colors, provided a contrast to the more formal, dogmatic approach of other contemporary exponents of the new typography.

Kitchen furniture

At the end of 1933 there was an abrupt change in Zwart's work as his attention turned more toward industrial and interior design. For the Dutch firm Bruijnzeel Piet Zwart designed kitchen furniture.
In 1977 Piet Zwart died in Wassenaar.

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