Peter
Vetter

Peter Vetter is a designer, partner and creative director at Coande, specialising in strategic consulting. He has gained extensive experience working in Italy, Germany, Japan, the USA and China. He has realised international projects for clients including La Rinascente, BMW worldwide, IBM, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Clifford Chance, the Zentrum Paul Klee, the Autorità Portuale di Palermo, the Stadt Rapperswil-Jona and the Italian Ministry of Culture. He is the former president of the Swiss Graphic Design Association and delivers lectures and workshops at home and abroad, including in China and Hong Kong. He is a senior lecturer and researcher at Zurich University of the Arts, where he was also head of the Visual Communication programme (MA, BA), as well as at SISD/HIT in Shenzhen, China. He acts as a guest lecturer in Switzerland and abroad, and his work is featured in international design publications. He also writes about current design topics, design history, and design and the economy in his own publications.

I see my artistic work as a form of visual and aesthetic research. I have been interested in art since the 1960s. Theo van Doesburg's assertion that his paintings and sculptures were 'objects for spiritual use' impressed me even then. My paintings are intended to radiate a meditative quality, like a Tibetan Mandala or a Japanese Karesansui rock garden. Their compositions convey a sense of order and harmony, giving viewers the opportunity to relax and reflect. Originally, the paintings and drawings were created in the traditional way, using oil on canvas or metal. Around 1985, I started working with computers, which gave the paintings an industrial and therefore objective character, turning them into objects — objects for intellectual use.