1897–1920 · Austria
Vienna Secession Graphics
Also known as Wiener Werkstätte Graphics, Sezessionstil
The graphic output of the Vienna Secession and Wiener Werkstätte, marrying gridded geometric ornament to gilded, Klimt-era pattern, custom square lettering, and the near-square journal Ver Sacrum.
Design Gustav Klimt (1898, public domain); photo Sailko, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gustav_klimt,_manifesto_per_la_I_kunstausstellung_secession,_vienna_1898,_litografia,_02_teseo_e_minotauro.jpg
Across disciplines
- Architecture: Vienna Secession
- Architecture: Art Nouveau
About the style
Vienna Secession graphics arose with the 1897 founding of the Secession, the breakaway association led by Gustav Klimt that rejected academic historicism for a modern, total art. Its mouthpiece, the journal Ver Sacrum, pioneered a near-square format, generous white space, and a disciplined integration of custom lettering, decorative borders, and original artwork. Koloman Moser and Alfred Roller fused the sinuous line of Art Nouveau with an increasingly geometric, gridded sensibility — checkerboards, squares, and rectilinear pattern — that distinguished Vienna from the floral whiplash of Paris or Brussels. When Moser and Josef Hoffmann founded the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903, this graphic discipline extended across posters, bookplates, packaging, and a famous gridded trademark. The Secession's marriage of ornament and geometry, often with gold leaf and flat decorative fields, bridged Art Nouveau and the coming rationalism of modern design.
Notable examples
- ▸Koloman Moser — Ver Sacrum journal designs (1898–1903)
- ▸Gustav Klimt — 1st Vienna Secession exhibition poster (1898)
- ▸Hoffmann & Moser — Wiener Werkstätte gridded monogram (1903)
Anatomy of Vienna Secession Graphics
The numbered markers call out the design elements that define this style. Hover or tap a marker to see its breakdown.
Design Gustav Klimt (1898, public domain); photo Sailko, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gustav_klimt,_manifesto_per_la_I_kunstausstellung_secession,_vienna_1898,_litografia,_02_teseo_e_minotauro.jpg
The exhibition title is drawn in squared, rhythmic custom letterforms rather than a standard typeface — type designed as part of the image.
Large areas of empty paper are composed deliberately, giving the design an airy, ordered clarity unusual for its era.
Theseus and the Minotaur render a modern manifesto in mythic terms — the avant-garde slaying the old academic order.
Thin geometric rules and rectangular fields organize the sheet, the Viennese taste for the grid emerging from within Art Nouveau.
How Vienna Secession Graphics connects
Styles form a network, not a tree. Explore the direct neighbours below — click any to travel the map one hop at a time.
- Evolved from
- Parallel / cross-current
- Influenced by
Evolved from Art Nouveau (Graphic) — the Viennese, increasingly geometric turn of the Art Nouveau poster
Parallel / cross-current Vienna Secession — the graphic wing of the same Secession / Wiener Werkstätte movement
Art Nouveau parallel / cross-current Vienna Secession Graphics — the Viennese, geometric wing of Art Nouveau in graphic form
Plakatstil influenced by Vienna Secession Graphics — shared the move toward flat planes, geometry, and the integrated logotype
Bauhaus Graphic Design influenced by Vienna Secession Graphics — extended the Viennese turn from ornament toward geometric order
Psychedelic Poster Art influenced by Vienna Secession Graphics — borrowed Alfred Roller's squeezed, space-filling Secession lettering
Describe it like this
Prompt-ready vocabulary for describing or re-creating the Vienna Secession Graphics look.