Bayerische Staatsoper, 1993–2006

From 1993 to 2006, all posters for Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper, the Bavarian State Opera, were designed by the late great Pierre Mendell (1929–2008). A master of the conceptual image in the same league as other celebrated German graphic designers such as Hans Hillmann or Gunter Rambow, Mendell devised a very simple and elegant typographic signature, whose location on the right edge of the format allowed maximum room for his visual interpretation of each work.

One of the many cuts of Bodoni (probably the Berthold version, designed in 1983 by Günter Gerhard Lange) is used for the name of the opera, while all additional information is set in Univers (in some very rare cases, it is replaced by Futura, a Mendell favourite).

All the posters designed by Mendell for the Staatsoper were gathered in 2006 in this beautiful little book. For a broader view of the man’s remarkable work and career, see At first sight (2001), from the same publisher.