He was influenced by the De Stijl movement, which focused on the essentials of form, colour and line, but later moved to a more functional design aesthetic.

Zwart had no formal training in typography or printing, so he was uninhibited by the rules and methods of traditional professional practices.

[3] From 1908 he taught drawing and art history lessons at the Industrie- en Huishoudschool voor Meisjes, (Industrial and Domestic School for Girls) in Leeuwarden.

Zwart's ideas were similar to those of the Bauhaus art school in Germany, where, in 1929, he gave a series of guest lectures.

[6] In 1942, during World War II, Zwart's design career came to a halt when he was arrested by the occupying German forces.

The Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam is named after him.

[7] "Zwart was able to manipulate the oblique perspective in such a way that space was not only activated but made to seem irrational in order to heighten the viewer's experience of what would otherwise have been an ordinary rectangular room.

He did not adhere to traditional typography rules, but used the basic principles of constructivism and "De Stijl" in his commercial work.

[9] His work can be recognized by its primary colours, geometrical shapes, repeated word patterns and an early use of photomontage.

[10] The latter is exemplified by his well-known cover designs for the series Monografieën over filmkunst (Monographs on Film Art).

[11] His commercial print work has influences from Constructivism, Dada and De Stijl, while still adding a playfulness to the mix.

He had experimented with typography in the early 1920s, but, while working at the NKF, he realised how unaware he was of the terms and methods of printing.

He experimented with small and large letters, circles and rectangles, visual puns, repetition and alliteration.

The photographs that he integrated into his work have high contrast, negative images, and are overprinted with colored inks and cropped into geometric shapes.

[14] In the Netherlands immediately before World War II, activity in the design field grew rapidly, calling for new solutions to functional problems.