Design is fine. History is mine.

When I began my professional career in advertising in the late 1980s, the work of Mendell & Oberer in Munich raised the bar of contemporary graphic design. Their unmistakable visual language influenced an entire generation of art directors – and was copied just as often as it was admired.

1993: Pierre Mendell & Klaus Oberer, La Traviata, Giuseppe Verdi. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Dmitri Shostakovich, Bavarian State Opera, Munich. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, choreography John Neumeier.

The designer behind this remarkable body of work was Pierre Mendell (1929–2008). Throughout his career he developed a graphic vocabulary that was radically reduced yet immediately expressive. Every poster distilled an idea to its essence. Influenced by the precision of Swiss graphic design, which he encountered while studying under Armin Hofmann at the Basel School of Design, Mendell combined formal discipline with exceptional clarity and wit.

1994: Pierre Mendell & Klaus Oberer, An American Program, Bavarian State Ballet, Munich. Un ballo in maschera, Giuseppe Verdi. Don Giovanni, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Tannhäuser, Richard Wagner.

Mendell was not alone in pursuing a reduced, metaphorical approach to poster design. During the second half of the twentieth century, designers such as Saul Bass or the artists of the Polish School of Posters demonstrated how a single symbolic image could communicate an entire narrative. Mendell developed his own distinctly Swiss-influenced visual language, applying these principles with exceptional consistency throughout his career.

1995: Pierre Mendell & Klaus Oberer, Der junge Lord, Hans Werner Henze. Simon Boccanegra, Giuseppe Verdi. Parsifal, Richard Wagner.

This post focuses on the series Mendell created for the Bavarian State Opera between 1993 and 2006. Over more than a decade he designed over one hundred posters, establishing a visual identity unlike any other in the cultural world. Although the expressive power of visual reduction had already been demonstrated by designers such as Saul Bass, Mendell developed an unmistakably personal language, rather than illustrating performances, he translated the essence of an opera into a single memorable image.

Another constant throughout the series is the typography. While every image is unique, the typography never changes. Set in the timeless Bodoni typeface and always occupying the same position, it acts as the visual anchor of the entire campaign. This deliberate consistency transforms more than one hundred individual posters into a coherent visual identity, while the imagery remains free to surprise and tell a new story every time.

1998: Pierre Mendell & Klaus Oberer, Der Freischütz. Tristan und Isolde, Richard Wagner. Was ihr wollt, Manfred Trojahn.

Born in Essen in 1929, Mendell emigrated with his family to France in 1934, where he attended school. In 1947 he moved to the United States before returning to France in 1953 to work in his family’s textile business. In 1958 he enrolled at the School of Design in Basel, studying under the influential Swiss designer Armin Hofmann. Following a brief collaboration with Michael Engelmann, he founded Mendell & Oberer together with Klaus Oberer in Munich in 1961. The studio quickly established itself as one of Germany’s leading practices for graphic design and visual communication.

1999: Pierre Mendell & Klaus Oberer, Katja Kabanová, Leoš Janáček. Otello, Giuseppe Verdi. L’Orfeo, Claudio Monteverdi. Lohengrin, Richard Wagner.

From 1980 onwards Mendell served as the in-house designer of Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum Munich, and during the 1990s he assumed the same role for the Bavarian State Opera. These long-term collaborations gave him an unusual degree of artistic freedom, allowing him to refine a graphic language that would shape Munich’s visual culture for decades.

It is the intellectual attitude that distinguishes good graphic design: rigorous, reduced in form, always powerful, never pretentious. Pierre Mendell has thus developed a highly individual style that responds flexibly to the tasks at hand and does justice to the subjects he addresses. This is why Pierre Mendell’s posters are so simple and compelling, and why they stand the test of time.

Florian Hufnagl, longtime director of Die Neue Sammlung

2000: Pierre Mendell & Klaus Oberer, A Cinderella Story, choreography John Neumeier, Bavarian State Ballet. Faust, Charles Gounod. Don Carlo, Giuseppe Verdi.

From 1980 onwards Mendell served as the in-house designer of Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum Munich, and during the 1990s he assumed the same role for the Bavarian State Opera. These long-term collaborations gave him an unusual degree of artistic freedom, allowing him to refine a graphic language that would shape Munich’s visual culture for decades.

2004: Design Studio Pierre Mendell. Romeo et Juliette, Charles Gounod. Falstaff, Giuseppe Verdi.

In 2000, Mendell & Oberer became Pierre Mendell Design Studio. The studio continued to work in the fields of visual identity, posters and cultural communication. Today Mendell’s work is represented in major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

I am often asked about the philosophy behind my work. And I always answer that I don’t have one. The term philosophy does not occur to me in connection with graphic projects. I try to approach the subject pragmatically, as close to the content as possible. Of course, I look for simple, communicative solutions because I believe that the world is flooded with images and that a simple, direct formulation conveys the message better. At first glance, so to speak. In this context, there is also something like a visual ecology that motivates me. If there had to be a philosophy, it would be that the way people communicate with each other also defines their culture. And if we can bring some culture into graphic design for everyday life, so much the better.

Pierre Mendell

2004: Design Studio Pierre Mendell. The Rape of Lucretia, Benjamin Britten. Rodelinda, Händel.

Three decades later, the Bavarian State Opera posters remain a benchmark for cultural communication. They demonstrate that a memorable visual identity does depend on the ability to express an idea with intelligence and imagination. Few poster campaigns have achieved such consistency over such a long period, and even fewer continue to look as compelling today.

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Sources:
Pierre Mendell: Posters for the Opera / Plakate für die Oper. Lars Müller Publishers
Pierre Mendell: Auf den ersten Blick – Grafikdesign für den Alltag. Lars Müller Publishers
Typolexikon – Pierre Mendell (Wolfgang Beinert)
Die Neue Sammlung
Pierre Mendell Design Studio
Plakatkontor, Berlin