Niklaus Troxler is a Swiss graphic designer and organiser of the Willisau Jazz Festival from 1975 to 2009. With this he has designed numerous posters, playing with the lines, flow, clarity and colour. He ‘uses an extensive use of abstraction to evoke the rhythms and tempo of jazz’. With the numerous posters made, it is valuable to see the different ways that he explored, as some are very fluid whilst others jagged and rough.
Above. I picked out three posters that I like and are different against each other. The first uses block colours and a continuous line joining up all the handwritten type. It’s bright, clean but still chaotic – it has a boucey rhythm to it. The second focuses on handwritten type, where ink is splatter onto the page. There are blobs around that seem buoyant and soft compared to the first poster. Lastly, the third contains lots of splicing of colour and type and fills the page to the brim. The varying size of type that bob up and down are rhythmic, which creates interest as you read; whilst the black and white rectangles remind you of a piano.
Below are some more examples of his work that I thought we interesting:
