Dead Franco-Swiss designer Jean Widmer
Keystone-SDA
Franco-Swiss designer and graphic artist Jean Widmer has died at the age of 96, the Centre Pompidou in Paris has announced.
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Widmer was, among other things, the creator of the famous logo of the Centre Pompidou and designer of the signage on French motorways.
Widmer, born in 1929 in Frauenfeld, northeastern Switzerland, settled in Paris in the mid-1950s where he became a graphic designer and designed the identity of various cultural venues such as the Musée d’Orsay and the Institut du Monde Arabe.
“Jean Widmer transformed the history of graphic design and visual communication,” wrote the Centre Pompidou in a statement.
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Switzerland: still a font of creativity
The most famous creation of this pioneer of minimalism dates back to 1977 when he conceived the logo of the newly opened Centre Pompidou: five black lines on a white background, crossed by a diagonal representing the five different floors of the building and its escalator.
This logo, which is still used by the Parisian museum today, has made Widmer known all over the world. “It is the logo I designed the fastest in my entire career, I already had it in mind,” he explained in November 2020, according to the statement.
“Its stroke, inspired by the architecture of the building, today perfectly symbolises the openness, multidisciplinarity and creative spirit that animates us. His logo has become an integral part of the Centre Pompidou’s identity,” said Laurent Le Bon, president of the institution.
In 2017, Widmer was awarded the Swiss Grand Prix for Design. He was one of the first Swiss graphic designers in the French capital who pioneered a completely new style with his designs, “crisp and colourful”, the jury indicated in its commendation.
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