AIGA Boston 1986 Wolfgang Weingart Lecture Poster

This poster from 1986 was designed to promote the AIGA Boston event “Miscellaneous Thoughts on Typography,” a lecture and demonstration by Wolfgang Weingart. Weingart (1941–2021) was a revolutionary German-born graphic designer and typographer who is widely considered the "father of New Wave" or "Swiss Punk" typography.

The poster was designed by Boston-based designers Christopher Pullman and Mary Salvadore of WGBH Design, with typesetting by M.J. Walsh. The event took place on Monday, April 7th, at Boston University. The three-color poster uses a letter dated January 5, 1986, as a “base” for its design. The aforementioned letter is from Weingart, apparently in response to an AIGA invitation to deliver the lecture. In his reply sent from Basel Switzerland, in regard to the Boston lecture, Weingart states, “it will have different aspects and thoughts, like: Why we made typography in my typography-classes at the end of the 60ties so and and not so like many others.” Weingart details his proposed agenda, which includes sharing his “teaching principles” and considering “the future of typography” as well as the “computer” (Mac).

The promotional poster highlights, appends, and annotates Weingart’s typewritten letter, using keywords and phrases from Weingart’s reply as springboards to convey key information about the Boston-based event. For instance, the word “myself” is highlighted in yellow and is annotated with information about Weingart, while the word “presentation” is annotated with a list of equipment required, including “2 Kodak-Carousel slide projectors.” The annotated text, set in knocked-out Gill Sans, provides a welcoming humanist contrast to the gritty typewriter type of the original letter.