Sunday, September 18, 2011

Swissair / House of cards / 1960 / Brochure / 1956



These lovely Swissair cards are obviously based on Charles Eames House of Cards** from 1952 though he designed two sets of fifty-four cards each. The Swissair set I have has thirty-seven (so it doesn't seem complete) twenty-five  with a white back and red logo the rest with a red back and white logo  and I think they were designed in the late-fifties. The card size is 2.75 by 4 inches making them a bit bigger than the Eames cards.
   The fold-out brochure was designed by Kurt Wirth in 1958. I’ve always thought it looked a wonderful example of Swiss design, busy yet very controlled in the way it displays the images and text. Over fifty years and still fresh and interesting.
    **You can see the Picture deck of Eames House of Cards in the November 2012 archive.













11 comments:

  1. hello there. i love this article! i love the House of Cards. I did one when i was at the university. i chose architectural details of Chicago. i loved the project and very proud of my house of cards. now i want to do it again. would you know where i can get the template for it and buy the blank cards as well? i will even settle for the template..in InDesign or whatever. i may have an extra set of the cards. i'd appreciate any help you can give me.
    thanks!!!

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  2. Cindy: sorry, I've no idea where you could get a set of blank cards. I wonder if any printer is still putting out the original House of Cards by Charles Eames? They would obviously have a cutting template to produce the cards.

    The alternative would be print a design on lightweight card and cut them out yourself, the fine slots would be the hard part.

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  3. I love these cards. My father in law used to work for swissair in the 70s and he will love them...
    Thanks for sharing.
    I also put them on my blog. Check it out.

    http://rueduchatquipeche.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/swissair-house-of-cards-circa-1960.html

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  7. you have superb information on blogging. Keep on blogging guys design brochure template

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