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Hermann Eidenbenz. Der Film. Basel: Holbein, 1947
“Der Film was published four years after an exhibition on the history of cinema at the Basel Gewerbemuseum. The authors say that it is not a catalogue of the exhibition, but a reworking and enlargement of the material (...) So important was Eidenbenz’s contribution that his name as designer appears on the front cover. Der Film is in A4 format. Instead of numbering each of the book’s 144 pages, left- and right-hand pages of the double-page spreads are given the same number, emphasizing their interdependence. On the cover -printed in black with text in the four orange rectangles- Eidenbenz establishes the maximum number of film stills of a practical size that would fit the format. Though this sets out the basic three-column structure, the vertical placing of images within the columns is controlled only by the demands of the verbal-visual message. The text alongside the images is an advanced example of ‘functional typography’. Sentences are broken into phrases, often attached to the image, ranged right on the left of an image, and ranged left on the right.”
Richard Hollis. Swiss graphic design: the origins and growth of an international style, 1920-1965. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006 (p. 151)