United by the Swiss Graphic Design by Constança Monteiro Risques Camões Gouveia

UNITED BY THE SWISS GRAPHIC DESIGN Design de Comunicação III 2º ano 1º semestre

Constança Gouveia nº13273 Joana Cruz nº13294 Marta Costa nº12737

2021/2022 Faculdade Belas Artes Universidade de Lisboa

JOSEF JOSEF MÜLLER MÜLLER BROCKMANN BROCKMANN

JOSEF MÜLLER BROCKMANN josef müller brockmann

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 1.1 1.2

GRAPHIC DESIGNER BY ACCIDENT.................................4 THE FATHER OF SWISS GRAPHIC DESIGN ........................6

1.1

GRAPHIC DESIGNER BY ACCIDENT

I became a graphic designer by accident. At school, I didn't like writing much so I started drawing. My teacher was impressed, so I realized I had talent. He suggested that I should pursue an artistic career. So I became an apprenticed to two old architects. It lasted four weeks. Then I went to all the graphic designers I found in the phone book to find out what they had studied. So I enrolled at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts. -josef müller-brockmann

Perhaps one of the most recognisable figures who worked within the Swiss Design style is the designer Josef Muller-Brockmann, who is responsible for making the use of grids within design popular. The use of the grid system would become one of the most important principles of Swiss Design. Müller-Brockmann was born in Switzerland in 1914. He studied graphic design and architecture at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts. In 1934, he opened his graphic design and illustration studio in Zurich, first as a freelancer, then joined by collaborators from 1936. In 1937, he became a member of the Swiss Werkbund (Swiss Association of Artists and Designers) After 1945, Müller-Brockmann concentrated his work on illustration and exhibition design. In 1950, he designed his first poster for the Tonhalle in Zurich. It was at this time that he developed his constructivist approach to graphic design. Little by little, graphic design occupies all its time. His poster "protect the child" for the Swiss Automobile Club and his numerous posters for the Tonhalle in Zurich bring him great fame. In 1957, he replaced Ernst Keller as professor of graphic design at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich. In 1958, he created the trilingual magazine Neue Grafik / New Graphic Design / Graphisme actuel with designers Richard Paul Lohse, Hans Neuburg and Carlo Vivarelli. From 1967, he was a consultant for IBM and founded the communication agency Muller-Brockmann & Co. Throughout his career, his work was rewarded with numerous prizes. He died on 30 August 1996 in Zurich.

Graphéine

1.2 THE FATHER OF SWISS GRAPHIC DESIGN

Josef Müller-Brockmann was, and still is, one of graphic design’s most influential figures. He is considered the father of functional and objective design. Having stood by the use of “organisational systems” and “laws” to create his most famous work, he has gave generations of graphic designers an underlying structure for visual communication in their own designs. Müller-Brockmann built his work mostly using geometric shapes, where the space between the shapes was as equally important as the shapes themselves, if not more important! All his spacing would follow mathematical ratios and rules to remove any subjective interpretation. He used sans-serif typefaces exclusively, generally all lower-case, to achieve total objectivity. For his composition he used a grid system, of which he is very well known for. Müller-Brockmann exclusively used sans-serif type faces in his work, mostly favoring Akzidenz Grotesk, even over it’s successors, Helvetica and Univers. He, in an interview, described contemporary, decorative, typefaces as a “shaky foundation”, if they have to be used by designers to encourage people to read. He said he wouldn’t read something

like that unless he had to. While I can see where he is coming from with this statement, I do believe contemporary typefaces have their place in today’s age of design if used in a suiting manner, as more contemporary typefaces can better invoke emotion than a more plain typeface, made for readability. I don’t agree that total objectivity is always the right way to go, not in expressive design anyway. Müller-Brockmann is considered the father to the usage of Grid Systems in design. With his past experience as a student in architecture, I suppose the usage of grids came naturally to him, as he applied it to graphic design. He has explained that his impulse to apply the grid concept to graphic design didn’t only come from his architecture experience, as typography since Gutenberg has striven for order. With the grid being an organisational system, it enabled him to create order optimally. With the grid system, he found creating designs not only became easier, but he was able to design faster, and better. It’s very easy to see how the usage of grids appealed to Müller-Brockmann with his fondness to objective work.

Order was always wishful thinking for me. For 60 years I have produced disorder in files, correspondence and books. In my work, however, I have always aspired to a distinct arrangement of typographic and pictorial elements, the clear identification of priorities. The formal organization of the surface by means of the grid, a knowledge of the rules that govern legibility (line length, word and letter spacing and so on) and the meaningful use of color are among the tools a designer must master in order to complete his or her task in a rational and economic manner. - Josef Müller-Brockmann, 1 year before his death.

Josef MüllerBrockmann

BIBLIOGRAPHY Graphéine graphic design https://www.grapheine.com/en/history-of-graphic-design/graphic-designer-muller-brockmann-swiss-style Josef Müller-Brockmann https://williamipark.github.io/IXD102-Josef-Muller-Brockmann-Essay/ index.html

richard paul lohse

TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 2.1 2.2

REVOLUTIONARY AT HEART......................................12 MASTER MECHANIC OF COLOR CONSTRUCTION.........................14

2.1

REVOLUTIONARY AT HEART

Lohse was an artifex doctus, an educated artist, whose understanding of history and art history would have put many a university professor to shame. Yet his education was not a matter of academic abstract knowledge, but rather acquired and imbued with his own experience as an artist and political person. Hence Lohse’s theoretical analysis and thinking always bear witness to his own actions. - Hans Heinz Holz

Richard Paul Lohse was a Swiss painter and graphic artist and a prime mover within the concrete art movement there Lohse was born in Zürich in 1902, and although he had ambitions to study art in Paris he lacked the resources to do so. In 1918, he joined the advertising agency Max Dalang, where he trained to become an advertising designer. Self-taught, he painted expressive, cubist-like still lives. By the 1930s, his work as a graphic artist and book designer placed him among the pioneers of modern Swiss graphic design and his success eventually allowed him to establish his own graphic design studio in Zürich. In his paintings of this period, he worked on curved and diagonal constructions. He combined art with a political and moral awareness, which led him to be an activist for immigrants. In the 1930s, he was actively involved in protests, which were illegal under the government of the time. He continued to protest until the beginning of World War II. His political convictions then led him into the resistance movement, where he met his future wife Ida Alis Dürner. In 1937, Lohse co-founded Allianz, an association of Swiss modern artists, with Leo Leuppi. In 1938, he helped Irmgard Burchard, to whom he was married for a brief time, to organise the London exhibition “Twentieth Century German Art”. The year 1943 marked a breakthrough in Lohse’s painting, he started to develop modular and serial systems and after the war he participated in the exhibition “Tendencies in Abstract Art” at Galerie Denise René in Paris. In 1953, he published the book New Design in Exhibitions, and from 1958, he became co-editor of the magazine Neue Grafik.

Archeus

2.2 MASTER MECHANIC OF COLOR CONSTRUCTION

Lohse started off as a graphic designer when the development of photomontage and typomontage by the Constructivist avantgarde was cut short in many parts of Europe by political events. Out of the pictorial discoveries of Constructivism, he developed a form of Constructive design that helped to give form to the concept of Swiss graphics, which was to have a global impact on design in the 1950s. Lohse did not confuse graphic design with the self-satisfied expression of the artist’s subjectivity through the graphic medium. Rather he found means of giving objective form to differentiated content.1 Lohse shows that he is a master mechanic of color construction, with a certain flair for articulating the oblique relations between colors His works are grids, and the final, truly masterful ones (Lohse died while the exhibition was on) are giant grids. Sometimes Lohse uses the square, but he always breaks it up—recomposes it—so that its axiomatic quality, the sense of its predetermination, is forgotten. Indeed, he gives the sense of total control over his work. Lohse’s art has a clarity that once seemed re-

bellious—antidotal to the expressionistic gesture— but that now seems overfamiliar and rigid. Yet his work, if only through its incredible constructive variety, suggests the limitless, even lyrical, possibilities inherent in color combinations—even within set geometrical form. In some pieces there is a sense of ecstatic intricacy, as though one were lost in a labyrinth of color relations even while moving in a utopian world of straight paths. Lohse overcomes the sense of predestination and the pseudo-meditational quality of so much geometrical color art, such as Josef Albers’. He does so, not the way Frank Stella did with his early paintings, through a puzzling little confusion at the center of the scheme, suggesting that it was all along a game, but through sheer complexity and intensity of color relationships. He maintains overall order, but the boldness with which he places different modules—wildly discrepant in size and color—next to each other, and makes them work together without losing their autonomy, is a convincing demonstration of the esthetic success sheer manipulation can produce.2

The attitudes implicit in Lohse’s work, including strong and still radical ideas about society, are very interesting, both as to what is older and what newer. The squares and rectangles comprise schemes that repeat or vary with colors that correspondingly repeat or vary. This way of working which now is common to lots of us, didn’t exist before Lohse and some others. It’s not the way that Mondrian, Malevich, or Van Doesburg worked. In Lohse’s work there is the end of the European compositional tradition, a good end, and also there is the beginning of much that is still beginning to develop. - Donald Judd, 1988

1-Lohse

2-ArtForum

BIBLIOGRAPHY Archeus / Post-Modern https://www.archeus.com/artists/richard-paul-lohse Lohse https://www.lohse.ch/works_graphic_e.html Artforum https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/198902/richard-paullohse-61184

RICHARD PAUL LOHSE

united by swiss graphic design

TABLE OF CONTENTS

03 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

MODERNIST GRAPHIC DESIGN AS A POSTWAR LIBERATION.........................20

NEUE GRAFIK.............................22 SIMILARITIES AND DISPARITIES.......................24 WORK SIDE BY SIDE......................................26

3.1 MODERNIST

GRAPHIC DESIGN

AS A POST-WAR LIBERATION 1-Britannica Graphic design

2.Arts and Design Inspiration

After World War II, designers in Switzerland and Germany codified Modernist graphic design into a cohesive movement called Swiss Design, or the International Typographic Style. The style was influenced by previous design styles before it, these include Constructivism, The Bauhaus and the new typography. Swiss Design comes under the style and ideology of Modernism. Modernism became popular during the 20th Century, but first became noticeable in the late 19th Century in a variety of cultures and art movements. Modernism was a revolt against the values which had been set in place by realism. In this movement designers sought a neutral and objective approach that emphasized rational planning and de-emphasized the subjective, or individual, expression. They constructed modular grids of horizontal and vertical lines and used them as a structure to regularize and align the elements in their designs. These designers preferred photography (another technical advance that drove the development of graphic design) as a source for imagery because of its machine-made precision and its ability to make an unbiased record of the subject. They created asymmetrical layouts, and they embraced the prewar designers’ preference for sans-serif typefaces. The elemental forms of the style possessed har-

mony and clarity, and adherents considered these forms to be an appropriate expression of the postwar scientific and technological age. From the 1960s to the 1970s, the “Swiss style” began to lose its influence.1 By the late 1970s, many designers working in the Modernist tradition felt it had lost its innovative spirit, and that it had become stale and academic. Questioning the rigid ‘form follows function’ philosophy of the International Typographic Style, they were inspired to rip up the rule book and break grids, challenge expectations and introduce decorative, subversive, and at times eccentric design elements. Modernism celebrated social progress, and the idealistic pursuit of utopia. Whether religious or scientific, it was about how universal principles could make sense of the world, and Modernist artists put more emphasis on form, technique and process than on the subjects of their work Postmodernism was a reaction against this attitude. In place of idealism and reason was scepticism, suspicion and a denial of the existence of universal truths that can describe the world around us. Postmodernist artists advocated complex individual experience and interpretation over the simple clarity of abstract principles, and the resulting aesthetic was multi-layered and often contradictory.2

3.2

NEUE GRAFIK MunariDesign

Neue Grafik is a milestone in the history of graphic design. A fundamental anthology of the basic principles of design and a true icon among the enthusiasts of Swiss graphic design. “International journal for the analysis and discussion of graphic design,” it was published in Zurich from the late 50s to the mid-60s. The magazine originated from the meetings and discussions between four respected Swiss designers, who shared a similar design attitude: Josef Müller-Brockmann, Hans Neuburg, Carlo Vivarelli, and Richard Paul Lohse. It was through this belief that Müller-Brockmann can be considered a follower of Richard Paul Lohse. The journal didn’t want to promote the careers of the editors, who were all already well known when the first issue was published, but offer their practical and intellectual contribution to other designers and young designers in particular. Many among the articles were in fact dedicated to the work of young designers and great attention

was given to the education of graphic designers — a theme that Müller-Brockmann also studied in other publications. The editors, who wrote most of the issues published in the magazine, wanted to promote an evolution in the field of graphic design that could had an equal impact to that of the major expressive trends . in the field of art. (Futurism and Constructivism in particular were widely discussed in the magazine.) In fact, the aim of the publication was not the promotion of a typical Swiss style in graphic design, but the promotion of those common denominators that was characterising the world’s contemporary graphic design production. The international scope of the magazine is testified by the variety of the contents that were published and also by the ability of the editors to propose the most interesting and unusual combinations of different themes. In one issue, it was very common to find articles

dedicated to such varied themes like the social responsibilities of the designer, the physical properties of light, and the graphics of jazz records. Or again, the sociological role of the designer, concert posters, and labels for beer. The international scope of the magazine was also emphasised by the nationality of the authors who wrote on its pages: German, Holland, French, Italian, American and, of course, Swiss. Contrary to other graphics journals, Neue Grafik was strictly focused on the promotion of a design characterised by a “mathematic clarity [...] not based on the ornament but on the balance and tension between form and colour,” intentionally ignoring all examples that “derived only from a pictorial or illustrational intention.” The editors wrote, “do not prize modernity for its own sake, nor applaud boldness and originality at all costs, but value the attempt to a solution gained by constructive methods, and not through illusory solu-

tions, based on the emotion.” The outcome was a neutral, uniform, and ordinary graphics. These typical Swiss qualities represent the heart of its design, but virtually offer the main argument of critic to all the enemies of objectivity, who mostly judge only the aesthetics and not the contents. Rather, the “normal” character of Swiss design and the space for dialogue created by the journal show a strong attitude towards democracy — also evident in other publications by Müller-Brockmann — and towards the respect of the viewers and users’s freedom of interpretation. The eco of the magazine sound everywhere, deeply reshaping the awareness of design all over the world. The fact that the magazine belonged to the past, to the history of design, made it even more attractive and at the same more unreachable, thus contributing to its legendary aura.

3.3

1-Grids: Creative Solutions for Graphic Designers

-Grid system in Graphic Design

SIMILARITIES AND DISPARITIES

Just as in nature, systems of the order fovern the growth and structure of animate and inanimate matter, so human activity itself has, since the earliest times, been distinguished by the quest for order. The desire to bring order to the bewildering confusion of appearances reflects a deep human need Josef muller-Brockmann.

2-Thinking Form

Several Swiss artists/designers, most notably Richard Paul Lohse, explored systematic forms in their painting concurrently with graphic design, while the graphic design Josef Muller-Brockman wrote educative texts explaining what grids were and how to use them. They both approached the subject with great rigor, arguing passionately that “integral design” required structures that would unite all the elements in both 2D and 3D design: type, pictures, diagrams, and space itself. Despite their enthusiasm for order and precision, they both understood the value of artistic intuition. The grid and the design philosophy of which it is a part have been criticized for placing the narcissistic designer at the heart of the solution, ante generating formulaic solutions that are mechanistic, unyielding

and rigid. But for Josef Muller-Brockmann, Richard Paul and other designers since, the grid was the natural response to a design problem. It was also a metaphor for the human condition, and was found in all areas of human endeavor.1 The first impression of Richard Paul Lohse is his sense of color. In his design work, he uses color effectively, sometimes with only one color. The way his approach to design and art is very logical. He uses mathematical formulas to do the artwork. Same goes for Müller-Brockmann who’s work is recognized for his simple designs and his clean use of typography, shapes and colors which inspire many graphic designers in the 21st century. Since they both worked together, they must have influenced each other.2

3.4

WORK SIDE

josef müller brockmann

Grid systems in graphic design ; Musica viva: Beethoven’s poster (1955), Végh-quartett Poster, Beethoven brahms strauss, Poster for Juni-Festwochen Zürich (1957); Poster strawinsky / fortner / berg, 1955;

richard pual lohse

A decade of new Architeture; Neue Asstellungsgestaltung; 1943/1970; Ausstellung Musikinstrumente; Bauen+Wohnen; fünfzehn systematische farbreihen mit vertikalen verdichtungendeath.

BY SIDE

BIBLIOGRAPHY Britannica - Graphic design, 1945–75 https://www.britannica.com/art/graphic-design/Graphicdesign-1945-75 Art and Design Inspiration https://www.creativebloq.com/inspiration/15-influential-art-anddesign-movements-you-should-know/3 Grids: Creative Solutions for Graphic Designers, RotoVisionBook https://url.gratis/Hogr7k Thinking Form https://thinkingform.nyc/2011/09/13/thinking-richard-paullohse-09-13-1902/ MunariDesign http://www.munaridesign.com/culture/neuegrafik.html

United by Swiss Graphic Design is the publication that aims to show the union between Josef Muller Brockmann and Richard Paul Lohse. This publication was created to better express the relationship between both designers. Based on the research carried out, a custom format was created divided into three sections: the first section focuses exclusively on the designer Josef Muller Brockmann; the second section focuses on the relationship between Josef Muller Brockmann and Richard Paul Lohse; the third section focuses exclusively on designer Richard Paul Lohse. Josef Muller Brockmann is one of the designers responsible for creating and developing a functional and objective design. Considered the father of the Swiss design revolution, Brockmann worked to create systems of organization and laws to build a design based on mathematics and rules. From these principles Muller explored the grid and everything that accompanies it. It is in this aspect that we see the creation of the “Grid System”. Like Brockmann, Richard Paul Lohse is also one of the leading figures of Swiss design, best known for its strongly constructivist strand. In his work stands out the incredible variety and unlimited combination of colors that transmit a lyrical component, although always under the geometric limitations strongly used in his works. He is, by many, known as the master of mechanical color construction. In common they share the same thought, where the creation of mathematically structured modular design is imperative. Both designers are characterized by their works built around the grid and accompanied by geometric shapes. The simplification of the use of typography, shapes and colors was recurrent. Still, their similarities are accompanied by opposition. While Muller explored the grid in design under an educational aspect, creating a visual communication structure for future generations of design, Paul Lohse explored the modular grid not only in its design but also in his paintings. More than the design itself, these two designers sought to use the design in a useful way. Both created a work ethic with a positive impact, even though

the theme of action was different. In the 1950s, Brockmann stopped working with alcohol, tobacco, war games, military and political. Josef argued that designers should have a sense of responsibility for the contribution they bring to society. This ethics allowed the development of a work that maintains the intelligence, objectivity, functional and aesthetic quality of mathematical thought. Richard, on the other hand, allied his art with a political and moral conscience, which led him to be an immigrant activist designer. The maximum union between these two Swiss designers occurs when they decide to create, along with two other designers, The Neue Grafik magazine. Neue Grafik is a milestone in the history of graphic design and carries with it a pedagogical and educational value of design. As editors of the journal, they wrote most of the published issues and sought to promote an evolution in the field of graphic design that could have an impact equal to that of the great expressive trends in the field of art. Futurism and constructivism were the two most discussed vanguards in the journal. It is in the letter of the editor of the first edition that it is possible to have the statement of intent of the magazine. The editors presented their policy, specifying that the magazine would not be a talent show, but a continuous source of information for all design enthusiasts. Josef Muller Brockmann and Richard Paul Lohse are thus two designers who relate by their similarities and differences. Both share the same basic principles for creating design and the same vision of design as a source of influence for the whole society so they seek a design that serves a purpose with positive impact. If their ethics and design bring them closer together, their union is also characterized by the application of design on different strands. While one focused on the educational aspect aimed at future generations of design, the other transported the principles to the artistic aspect, in his paintings. Neue Grafik magazine has become the main point of contact between the two designers and has been one of their biggest contributions to design.