The “Hieroglyphics of Today”

From 1975 to 1990, the visual designer Hans-Rudolf Lutz (1939–1998) collected approximately 15,000 pictograms from transport packaging from around the world. He was fascinated by their international readibility coupled with a keen aesthetic sensibility, ingenuity, and formal reduction. The “hieroglyphics of today,” as he calls them, were largely created by craftspeople working in the corrugated cardboard industry.