Robert Geisser (1920–1995) was a Swiss graphic designer and illustrator based in St. Gallen, known for posters, signets (logos) and book illustrations. He opened his own studio in St. Gallen in 1957 and became particularly recognized for his poster work for the OLMA agricultural fair and for advertising promoting the city of St. Gallen and the Lake Constance region.[1] His professional archive is documented by the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIK-ISEA), which lists him as a graphic artist and illustrator producing drawings, posters and signets.[2]
Design and History
Geisser described his special field as “advertising for an idea,” primarily for institutions whose tasks and goals were of an idealistic nature. He translated ideas into signs, developing expressive, mostly purely linear symbols that condensed a whole body of thought, a message, or commercially effective concepts into a few striking strokes.[3]
His most enduring logo is the OLMA mark, created for the Swiss agricultural and dairy fair (OLMA-Schweizer Messe für Land und Milchwirtschaft). The logo combines two leaf forms with three bars of the Swiss cross to suggest an animal head. It has remained unchanged for over fifty years.[3] A logo database entry attributes the design to Geisser with a creation year of 1966, categorizing it as a representational mark depicting its origin.[4]
Geisser also designed a peacock signet for a St. Gallen textile company, which is about ten years older than the OLMA mark. More detailed and playful than the OLMA logo, it also required no revision up to the time of writing.[3] A regional newspaper article confirms that the peacock signet, designed by Robert Geisser, was created out of a desire for a mark with high recognition value and still looks current today.[5]
Geisser also created a signet for the Michel stamp catalogues published in Hanover, featuring a stylized figure of the so-called “German Michel.” This mark is no longer in use, attributed not to the quality of Geisser’s design but to the ambivalence of this national personification, which today is used almost exclusively in a caricaturing manner.[3]
Meaning and Symbolism
Geisser’s approach was to condense complex ideas into minimal linear forms. The OLMA logo, for instance, uses just two leaf shapes and three bars of the Swiss cross to evoke an animal head, tying the mark directly to the fair’s agricultural identity.[3] The logo database further categorizes the OLMA mark as “representational / depicting its origin / semantic,” with tags including crosses, leaves, plants and outlines.[4]
Beyond these documented marks, Geisser’s signets for companies were part of his broader output. One notable example is a bee signet he designed for banks, which was selected for a small international collection of the best among thousands of signets.[6]
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