David Schatz

Profile

David Schatz is the co-founder of Hammer, a Zurich-based creative agency working across the fields of art direction and graphic design including book, type, corporate identity, web and textile design, as well as illustration.

Hammer works for several institutions and clients such as Kunsthalle Basel, the Swiss Federal Council, Cabaret Voltaire, Edition Patrick Frey and regularly puts out self-initiated work, in addition. Their distinctive design language and aesthetics is notable yet their work is wide-ranging and polymorphous. They are convinced that there is rarely an archetypal design solution but that the goal of a designer is to find a very specific language for each project. To do so, they look for a starting point that is rooted deep in the material they work with. The material itself leads to the right form, be this a deliberate artlessness, vernacular typography or obsessively accurate patterns. For Hammer, the proverbial devil is in the details. Their work has been awarded in the competition “The Most Beautiful Swiss Books” and their portfolio has been nominated for the Swiss Design Awards. Their work has been exhibited at the Zurich Museum of Design in the exhibition “100 Years of Swiss Graphic Design” and “Swiss Style Now” at the Cooper Gallery, New York.