Amadeus Waltenspühl is Graphic Designer of the Year 2016

Amadeus Waltenspühl, Yvo Hählen, Jiri Oplatek, Laurenz Brunner, and Urs Lehni - the Swiss Graphic Academy jury headed by jury president Melchior Imboden nominated them all for the inaugural Swiss Graphic Designer of the Year award. Now the 600-member Swiss Graphic Academy, which is made up primarily of graphic artists and designers working in Switzerland, but also includes selected personalities from the worlds of culture, business and politics, has made its choice: The first Swiss Graphic Designer of the Year is 31-year-old Amadeus Waltenspühl from the city of Lucerne.

The Waltenspühl family - a graphic family

The independent graphic designer, illustrator and animation designer comes from a graphic design family. His father is an independent graphic designer. And his mother, originally an architect, as well as his brother, a trained polygrapher, are also active in the design field. "I was already conditioned to design as a small child. My father had his studio at home at the time and always actively involved me in his work," says Waltenspühl. So his path seemed to be mapped out. And indeed, after an intensive artistic excursion into music - Waltenspühl was a drummer in various bands and a beatboxer, and even a Swiss champion in this field - he decided to pursue graphic design as a career after all, graduated from the graphic design class in Lucerne, and earned a Master of Arts in design, animation, and illustration. Today he teaches at the graphic design class in Lucerne and at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU).

Waltenspühl's work not only shapes the cityscape of Lucerne, but also to a decisive extent youth culture, formerly in Lucerne, today throughout Switzerland. The 31-year-old is still heavily involved in cultural activities and devotes around half of his working hours to this. He designs posters for concerts, bands, parties, clubs and festivals, makes CD covers and even live visuals. Waltenspühl also works for various international clients in the fields of illustration, animation and graphic design. Some of his works have also been exhibited internationally, for example in Moscow, Vladivostok and Beijing.

Lifetime Award for Winterthur graphic artist Armin Hofmann

With the Lifetime Award, the jury of the Swiss Graphic Academy honors the life's work of 96-year-old Winterthur graphic artist, sculptor and book designer Armin Hofmann. "Hofmann is one of the defining figures of Swiss graphic design," explains jury president Melchior Imboden. As a teacher and lecturer for many years, he has been a pioneering figure for a generation of young graphic designers, he says. Hofmann also had a lasting influence on graphic design on an international level: in the 1960s, he was a visiting professor at various international schools, including the Philadelphia College of Art, the National Institute of Design in India and Yale University in Connecticut. Hofmann continued to develop himself and his work. Contrary to the concept of the constructive, most of Hofmann's posters allow for a symbolic reading: for example, the image of a laughing clown (for the 1960/61 season at the Basel Stadttheater) or his famous Tell poster of 1963, which dispenses with any alpine romanticism and instead depicts an apple in black and white with "Tell" written on it in a strange-looking typography. Today Hofmann lives in Lucerne. Hofmann was extremely pleased to receive the Lifetime Award from the jury of the Swiss Graphic Academy: "This prize is a great honor for me. And shows that my work is sustainable."