Benziger Verlag was a Swiss publishing house based in Einsiedeln, with roots tracing to the mid-18th century and a formal founding date of 1792. The company grew from a devotional-objects shop into one of Switzerland’s largest publishers, closely tied to the Catholic Church and recognized by the Vatican as “typographers of the Holy See” in 1867. [1]
Design and History
The Benziger Verlag symbol was designed by the Swiss graphic designers Eugen and Max Lenz in 1950. [2] The brothers, working together as E. & M. Lenz in Zurich, were active from 1939 onward, creating publicity, advertising, display and poster graphics for clients including Swissair, Bally and BP. [3]
Contemporary design literature from the period describes the Benziger Verlag mark as depicting a church, a motif directly tied to the publisher’s Catholic religious publishing program. [4] The angular, geometric treatment of the church symbol reflects the Swiss graphic design approach of the post-war era.
Meaning and Symbolism
The church motif in the Benziger Verlag mark was not arbitrary. The publisher’s output was dominated by Catholic theological literature, prayer books, devotional images and religious popular works for more than a century. [1] The symbol therefore functioned as a direct visual reference to the house’s core publishing identity and its institutional relationship with the Catholic Church.
The Benziger Verlag was sold to the Rheinpfalz publishing group in Ludwigshafen in 1984, and the Einsiedeln site was permanently closed in 1995. [1] The American branch of the company, which had separated from the Swiss parent in 1897, continued independently and eventually became RCL Benziger, based in Cincinnati, Ohio. [5]
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