Ludovic Balland
Jan-Tschichold Award 2016
Each year, independently of the books submitted for the competition, the jury bestows the Jan Tschichold Award in memory of the typographer Jan Tschichold, on whose initiative the Swiss book design competition was launched in 1944. Since 1997 the Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA) has entrusted the jury with the task of awarding this honour to an individual, group or institution for outstanding achievements in book design. This year’s Jan Tschichold Award, which is endowed with CHF 15,000, goes to the designer and typographer Ludovic Balland.
Ludovic Balland (b. 1973 in Basel, grew up in Geneva)
After training in visual communication at the Basel Academy of Art and Design, Ludovic Balland specialises in typography, book conception and design. In 2002 he co-founds “The Remingtons” studio in Basel, and in 2006 sets up his own studio under the name “Typography Cabinet”. Here he works primarily in the fields of typographical research, book design and the creation of new visual identities, with commissions including the 5th Berlin Biennale (2008) and the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (since 2009). He has published numerous works on architecture (Herzog & de Meuron, Buchner Bründler, Christ & Gantenbein, Meili, Peter Architekten, EPFL). Ludovic Balland is currently responsible for the visual communication and catalogue for Documenta 14, which takes place in Kassel and Athens in 2017. Ludovic Balland has won the Swiss Federal Design Award in the graphic design category on three occasions (2003, 2011 and 2012). He has also received a number of accolades in the Most Beautiful Swiss Books and Best Book Design from all over the World competitions (the latter run by Stiftung Buchkunst). In 2009 he received the tdc New York typography excellence award. He has been a member of AGI Alliance Graphique Internationale since 2011. Balland teaches regularly at the Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne ECAL. He also gives numerous guest lectures abroad, for example at CalArts California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.
