Norm: The things

Swiss graphic designers Manuel Krebs and Dimitri Brun founded their company Norm after meeting in art school, and have been exploring system-based forms ever since. In 2003 they won the Jan Tschichold Prize for their book designs, and Norm is always on the list of usual suspects whenever young Swiss design is talked about. Their book The things does not explain much of their thinking, but what it lacks in text it makes up for in wonderful graphics.

Norm’s work, while usually not programmed in a traditional sense, is clearly concerned with systems. Their [Sign Generator 1.0->http://www.norm.to/pages/generator_3.html
] is a particularly clear case, consisting of a software that generates all possible combinations of a given set of lines on a grid. At the Abstraction Now exhibition it was shown as an interactive installation with a LED display, but you can also play with it online. (It’s a small world: Jürg Lehni was also involved in this project.)