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...

Queens of their Discipline – Posters by Women Designers

Temporary exhibition at Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Ausstellungsstrasse until 31.12.2025

This exhibition tells the story of the poster, using exclusively reprints of works by international women designers, for once. The poster is the supreme discipline in graphic design: its large size...

Collection Insights – 7 Perspectives

Temporary exhibition at Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Ausstellungsstrasse until 01.12.2024

«Collection Insights» examines selected objects in the collection from different angles and explore how the museum’s collecting, exhibiting, and educational activities are interconnected. Which new...

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Activities from this museum

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