Herbert Matter – Switzerland Travel Poster (1934)

Herbert Matter, a Swiss-born graphic designer and photographer, created the poster in 1934. Matter was working for the Swiss National Tourist Office at the time, producing a celebrated series of travel posters promoting Swiss destinations.

Matter used photomontage, combining large-scale black-and-white photography with bold sans-serif typography. The technique drew on Constructivist and Bauhaus influences and was highly innovative for commercial poster design in the 1930s.

Original prints are held in museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. They are also featured in major graphic design history collections and periodically appear at auction specializing in vintage posters.

The posters are considered foundational works of modern Swiss graphic design and helped establish the visual vocabulary later known as the International Typographic Style. Matter went on to teach at Yale University and became one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th century.