Liabilities

Interdependencies Between Sachfotografie and Good Design in Advertising

Abstract

“Photographs combine the laws of photography with the laws of things that can be visualized through photography”. These are the words the photographer Hans Finsler described around 1930 about the Relation of advertising and photography. Visually communicating what designers and producers were aiming for was by no means common; in advertising photography, design was usually placed in a fictitious atmospheric context of use.
An attitude of objectivity, honesty and restraint, however, became equally binding for many advertising photographers and designers who belonged to the German and Swiss Werkbund. A closed attitude developed since the founding of the Werkbund and was handed down to the post-war decades after 1945 almost without interruption in the concept of the "gute form“, accentuated by the Swiss Max Bill and for both countries, Germany and Switzerland, long time validity. A certain perseverance then characterizes this photography (Sachfotografie), which distanced itself from fashionable changes.

This contribution is available in German in the full 14th issue of «Ais / Design Journal».