Poster Stories

Large-scale design history: from its beginnings over 100 years ago to the present day, the pictorial poster has achieved impressive stylistic diversity. Icons line up alongside rediscoveries, from early painterly and narrative posters through pure typeface posters, which rely solely on expressive lettering, to artistic experiments with photography and recent designs using digital techniques. Together, they illustrate a wide variety of design approaches and convey the great innovative power of poster culture. With its Poster Collection, the museum holds one of the world’s most important archives of this medium. Featuring around 80 posters, the exhibition provides insights into the immense collection and illustrates the collection’s thematic, geographical, and historical scope.


Exhibitions and events

Collection Highlights

Permanent exhibition

When Max Bill’s Ulm Stool meets Albrecht Dürer’s Apocalypse (1498) and Adrian Frutiger’s Univers font encounters a Balenciaga cocktail dress, when Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s puppets dance around a SBB...

Swiss Design Lounge

Permanent exhibition

How about biding your time while discovering and trying out outstanding Swiss design at the same time? The Swiss Design Lounge at our newly refurbished main building on Ausstellungsstrasse now...

Oliviero Toscani: Photography and Provocation

Temporary exhibition at Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Ausstellungsstrasse until 05.01.2025

His images are arresting, disturbing, outrageous. As a photographer, creative director, and image editor, Oliviero Toscani made history and revolutionized commercial communications. He first came to...

Ciné-Passion – International Movie Posters

Temporary exhibition at Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Ausstellungsstrasse until 26.10.2025

Ciné-Passion tells the story of cinema from 1920 to the present in 75 highlights of the movie poster genre. The reprints presented are all subjective, artistic interpretations of what the films they...

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