ABC Verlag was a Swiss publishing house based in Zurich, known for its trilingual books on graphic design, typography and visual communication. The firm operated under the name ABC Druckerei + Verlags AG before later becoming ABC-Verlag, Zurich, Switzerland.[1]
Design and History
The publisher’s output included landmark reference works on Swiss graphic design, such as Graphic Art of a Swiss Town (1963), which documented the development of Zurich’s visual identity, and Walter Diethelm’s Signet, Signal, Symbol (1970), a handbook of international signs and symbols.[2][3] These books were part of a series that also included Basic Typography (1972) by Ruedi Ruegg and Godi Frohlich, and monographs on designers such as Celestino Piatti (1979) and Max Bill (1977).[4][5][6]
The ABC Verlag symbol was designed by Anton Schutzbach in 1970.[7] The mark is described as a square-shaped logo, consistent with the geometric, functional approach common in Swiss graphic design of that period. Beyond this basic description, no further documented details about the mark’s construction or its use across the publisher’s output have been verified.
Meaning and Symbolism
No official documentation has been found that explains the intended symbolism or meaning behind the ABC Verlag logo. The mark’s square format and the publisher’s initials are the only verifiable visual elements. The publisher’s name itself derives from the company’s earlier identity as ABC Druckerei + Verlags AG, a Zurich printing and publishing firm.[1]
Typography and Design
While the ABC Verlag logo itself has no documented typographic specification, the publisher’s books were notable for their own design quality. Graphic Art of a Swiss Town was designed by Walter Bangerter, who also authored and designed Official Graphic Art in Switzerland a year later.[2] The 1963 volume featured an asymmetric page layout with sans-serif type and a multi-column, multi-language, grid-based image layout, reflecting the Swiss typographic style of the era.[8]
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