Josef + The Grid: Rachel Larkin

Josef

+ The Grid: RACHEL LARKIN

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Josef + The Grid:

An aid, not a guarenttee

“The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropiate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.”

–JOSEF MULLER-BROCKMANN

As one of the twentieth century’s most influential graphic designers, Josef Muller Brockmann remains an influential figure for generations of designers around the globe. Best known for his music posters produced from the 1950s through the 1970s, Muller-Brockmann adopted a modern constructivist approach with a heavy integration of the grid system and the use of geometrical form to provide a core structure to his graphic work. Several books were published under his name, providing an in-depth analysis of his work practices and philosophies.

Opernhaus Zurich, Eroffnung der Spielzeit, Josef Muller-Brockmann Poster, 1966.

A common method of organizing content using the grid methodology often by graphic designers and typographers to create rational organization of a page layout to create a functional and effective page design.

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In 1914, Josef Muller-Brockmann was born within the heart of Europe, separated by twenty-four regions, and four national languages. Switzerland remained the location of his established design career ending with his death in 1996. He studied architecture, design and history of art at the University of Zurich, and found himself at the city’s Kunstgewerbeschule, taught by Ernst Keller and Alfred Willimann. The two were significant figures in the development of the constructivist movement in graphic design which favored art as a practice directed towards social change or to serve a social purpose in the form of logos, posters, and advertisements which heavily influenced Muller-Brockmann’s designs.

He began his career in 1936 as an apprentice to the designer and advertising consultant Walter Diggleman before establishing his own studio in Zurich specializing in graphics, exhibition design and photography. By the 1950s, Muller-Brockmann was the leading practitioner and theorist of Swiss Style, which sought a universal graphic expression through a grid based design without irrelevant imagery and subjective feeling. Perhaps one of his best known work was Musica viva, a poster series for the Zurich Tonhalle in 1951 focused on the language of constructivism to create a visual language that correlated to the structural harmonies found within music. His aim was to design posters that communicated not only to masses of people, but across the language barrier of the Swiss population. “We designers in this age of mass production have a great responsibility,” and “day after day, our products are being distributed in innumerable copies, influencing the taste of millions of people. Whether this influence is good or bad depends upon two things– our intention and ability.”1 Muller-Brockmann’s life work was directed to expose the objective principles of each visual message, and believed that the language we use in our designs must come from an “inner conviction and substantial idea,”, and as a protagonist for objective, radically minimalist geometric design, he carefully examined key elements involved in the

Candid of Muller-Brockmann with fellow coworkers briefing a design in the workplace.

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Portrait of Joseph Muller-Brockmann at a later point in his life

Josef:

Incredibly Swiss

design process and reduced each to their fundamental nature.

From 1958 to 1965, Muller-Brockmann was the founder and co-editor of Neue Grafik, a trilingual journal that spread the principles of Swiss Design internationally, and at the same time he was a graphic design professor at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Zurich. Soon after in 1967, he was the European design consultant for IBM, as well the author of The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems (1961), History of Visual Communication (1971), History of the Poster (1971), and Grid Systems in Graphic Design (1981). By 1987, he was awarded a gold medal for his cultural contribution by the State of Zurich.

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Soon enough, Josef Muller-Brockmann began to question the conventional page layout of the time alongside other Swiss designers such as Armin Hofmann, Max Bill and Richard P Lohse.

They began to experiment and devise a flexible system that aided designers to achieve coherency in organizing a page. The result was a modern typographic grid, that became associated with the International Typographic Style, or Swiss Style.

The structured layout purely emphasized cleanliness, simplicity, readability, legibility, and objectivity. However, it was often characterized as cold by an emotionally sterile grid system with sans serif typefaces that were industrial looking and photographic images rather than illustrations. Above all, the ideal product of the design was to achieve clarity and order.

“Order was always wishful thinking for me” –Josef Müller-Brockmann

The Grid: Mathematical Harmony

Muller-Brockmann was concerned with functional design that focused on a clean, sharp geometrical design offered by the restrictive design quality of the typographic grid. The use of the grid system implies the clarification of information to penetrate the essentials. Equally as important, “to cultivate objectivity rather than subjectivity, while adopting a forward thinking attitude in rationalizing the creative and technical production process.” 2 By using the grid system, typographers and graphic designers solve visual problems by dividing a two-dimensional plane into smaller fields. It determines the constant dimensions of space, and the grid makes it easier to give the surface rational organization. By arranging the layout in the form of a grid, the designer is able to place text and images with an objective and orderly design conformity.

However, Muller-Brockmann notes, “The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.” 3 Tonhalle-Gesellschaft Zurich, Beethoven Brahms Strauss, Josef Muller-Brockmann, Poster, 1955.

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Notes

1. Muller-Brockmann, Josef. “Dialogues on Graphic Design.” Industrial Design 3, no. 2 (1956): 16.

2. Brockmann, Josef. Grid systems in graphic design: a visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and three dimensional designers = Raster Systeme für die visuelle Gestaltung : ein Handbuch für Grafiker, Typografen und Ausstellungsgestalter. 4th rev. ed. Sulgen: Verlag Niggli, 1996.

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3. “The Grid System.” The Grid System. http://www.thegridsystem.org/ (accessed March 28, 2014) Bibliography Brockmann, Josef. Grid systems in graphic design: a visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and three dimensional designers = Raster Systeme für die visuelle Gestaltung : ein Handbuch für Grafiker, Typografen und Ausstellungsgestalter. 4th rev. ed. Sulgen: Verlag Niggli, 1996.

“Josef Muller-Brockmann: Principal Of The Swiss School.” noupe. http://www.noupe.com/design/josefmuller-brockmann-principal-of-the-swiss-school.html (accessed March 28, 2014).

Muller-Brockmann, Josef. “Dialogues on Graphic Design.” Industrial Design 3, no. 2 (1956): 16.

Purcell, Kerry William, and Josef Brockmann. Josef Muller-Brockmann. New York: Phaidon Press, 2006.

Inspired:

Infinitely Continued

As one of the fathers of the grid system, the philosophies of Josef Muller-Brockmann continue to inspire generations of future designers, as well as continuing to influence design on a global scale through the grid philosophy and his past work.

“The Grid System.” The Grid System. http://www. thegridsystem.org/ (accessed March 28, 2014).

“The Importance of Grid Systems.” Artfan Design -Web and Graphic Design,Photography, Logo, Design Inspiration and Resources, Wordpress. http://www.artfans.info/the-importance-of-grid-systems/ (accessed March 28, 2014).

As seen on previous spread: Stadttheater Zurich, Internationale Juni Festwochen, Josef Muller-Brockmann, Poster, 1962.

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Stadttheater Zurich, Internationale Juni Festwochen, Josef Muller-Brockmann, Poster, 1963.

Stadttheater Zurich, Internationale Juni Festwochen, Josef Muller-Brockmann, Poster, 1964.

Tonhalle-Gesellschaft Zurich, Beethoven, wJosef Muller-Brockmann. Poster, 1955.

Kunstgewerbemuseum Zurich, Der Film, Josef Muller-Brockmann, Poster, 1960.

Enlargement of Tonhalle-Gesellschaft Zurich, Beethoven, Poster, 1955, seen on previous page.

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Designed and written by Rachel Larkin Composed in Helvetica Neue, typefaces designed by Max Meidinger in 1983.

Printed from a Canon Image Runner onto 40# text Copyright Š 2014 Rachel Larkin, Portland, Maine, Maine College of Art

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