Typographica National Museum of Type
20th Century Cultural Icons
Josef M端ller-Brockmann Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design 7 August - 4 October 2008 Daily Express Building, London
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josef müller-brockmann formative years influences of the swiss style swiss graphic design 1930-1940s the swiss style josef müller-brockmann 1950-1960s zurich tonhalle posters health and safety posters neue grafik 16 legacy 18 josef Müller-Brockmann’s importance
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josef müller-brockmann formative years
Josef Müller-Brockmann studied architecture, design and history of art in Zurich in the 1930s, a decade of political, social and cultural contradiction in Switzerland. Conservative values were confronted with an opposition interested in constructive modernism. Josef Müller-Brockmann audited courses by Ernst Keller, Alfred Willimann and Hans Finsler at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts. Keller, a graphic designer with a traditional arts and crafts approach and master of type design, Willimann, a typographer with affinity with the Bauhaus, and Finsler, a pioneer of objective photography, exerted a considerable influence on Josef MüllerBrockmann’s generation of designers and photographers.
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josef m端ller-brockmann formative years
Josef M端ller-Brockmann Helmhaus Zurich 1953 Switzerland [100cm x 70cm]
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influences of the Swiss Style
constructivism
Black Square and Red Square - 1915 Kasimir Malevich Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge - 1920 El Lissitzky To Be Read Out Loud - 1923 El Lissitzky
The roots of the Swiss Style can be traced back to Constructivism, an artistic and architectural movement originated in Russia in 1919 which rejected the idea of traditional art belonging to the old burgeois society and was in favour of art directed to social purposes. Constructivism was the foundation for many principles of the Modern Movement in architecture and design. It was expressed through clear use of geometry, flat colours, layouts on diagonal axis and asymmetry. Constructivist artists adopted the mechanical production of images through photography and industrial reproduction by the printing press. They used the geometrical forms of abstract painting to demolish the division between art and labour. They were involved in designs for the industry, public festivals and propaganda for the establishment of Communism.
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influences of the Swiss Style De Stijl -The Style - Holland’s avant-garde movement in art and architecture, was also a source of inspiration for graphic artists of the Swiss Style. The movement was characterised
by rectangularity exemplified in the abstract paintings of Piet Mondrian. Theo Van Doesburg, painter, architect, poet and editor of De Stijl magazine, produced geometrical
graphic design and typography for the publication and had a powerful impact on Bauhaus graphics.
de stijl
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influences of the Swiss Style
bauhaus form follows function
The influence of Constructivism from Russia, and De Stijl artists from The Netherlands reached Germany and was inspirational for radical artists who started to move from Expressionism towards Functionalism. The German influence on the Swiss Style is clearly related to the ideals of the Bauhaus, a school of arts founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, a time when the new liberal Weimar Republic allowed experimentation in all arts. Bauhaus had a modern aesthetic and was marked by an abstract, geometrical style free of ornamentation. Bauhaus artists used radically simplified forms, rationality, functionality and massproduction in their designs. Harmony between the function of an object and its design was a primary objective.
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influences of the Swiss Style
new typography
Man’s Depravity - poster 1927 Jan Tschichold The Professional Photographer exhibition poster 1938 Jan Tschichold
Bauhaus typography used 19th Century sans serif typefaces known as Grotesque, the most commonly used being Akzidenz Grotesk – Akzidenz meaning everyday jobbing or commercial printing. Capital letters were often fitted into rectangles and rules and bullets were incorporated as type material. New letter forms devised by the Bauhaus had a strict geometric base. Jan Tschichold, a German calligrapher and book designer, was an instrumental figure in promoting this “New Typography”. He codified the new principles in his 1928 book Die neue Typographie in which he stated that typography is shaped by functional requirement. He also stressed that the aim of typographical layout is communication, which must appear in the shortest, simplest and most penetrating form. He also outlined the importance of photography, sans-serif types, asymmetrical layout, white space, the possibility of lines of type set obliquely or vertically and the rejection of ornaments.
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swiss graphic design
swiss graphic design 1930- 1940s
All these influences were absorbed by a generation of Swiss designers in the 1920s and 1930s, who adopted this new graphic expression to serve their interests. Graphic artists of this time saw design as part of industrial production and searched for objective, visual communication. It was during this period that the Swiss Style started to be shaped to gain international impact in the 1950s.
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Thécla Iron Foundry brochure 1932 Anton Stankowski ‘Drive to Switzerland’ ‘All Roads Lead to Switzerland’ posters 1934 Herbert Matter
Avant-garde influences had an impactt on advertising products of engineering, electrical, chemical and construction industries and tourist posters.
swiss graphic design
the swiss style 1950s The Swiss Style sought universal graphic expression through grid-based design, asymmetrical layout, use of sans serif type, mainly Akzidenz Grotesk, geometric shapes, bold flat colours and photography. The Swiss Style emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity. Josef M端ller-Brockmann applied this style to his designs in order to achieve functional communication.
4 Junifestkonzert poster 1957 Switzerland Josef M端ller-Brockmann
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josef müller-brockmann 1950-1960s
zurich tonhalle posters
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Beethoven poster 1955 Switzerland Musica Viva Kleiner Tonhallesaal poster 1959 Switzerland
Josef Müller-Brockmann’s was part of the group of designers who received the influence of the Modern Movement and in the 1950s, he gradually moved from illustration to objective, constructive design. He became a leading practitioner and theorist of the Swiss Style.
josef müller-brockmann 1950-1960s
After the war, Josef Müller-Brockmann concentrated on exhibition design, working for various theatres in Switzerland and abroad. In this period he designed a series of posters for the Zurich Tonhalle – Concert Hall. These influential posters show his commitment to abstraction by the use of strong geometry and grid based organisation. He created a mathematical harmony that reflects the harmony of music.
Internationale Juni-Festwochen poster 1963 Switzerland Die Liebe zu den drei Orangen poster 1965 Switzerland
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josef müller-brockmann 1950-1960s
health and safety posters
protégez l’enfant ‘Mind the Child’ poster 1953 - Switzerland ‘Less Noise’ poster 1960 - Switzerland
The influence of Constructivist art, with its underlying social responsibility is clearly manifested in his designs for public health and safety posters. He created a characteristic dramatic effect by implementing changes of scale, heavy cropping, black and white photographs, often diagonal axis, coloured lettering for slogans and injunctions that suggested that they could be shouted. The poster ‘ Watch the Child’ that he designed for the Swiss Automobile Club showing a child dodging the tilted front wheel of a motorcycle is an example of this style.
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josef müller-brockmann 1950-1960s
neue grafik Neue Grafik - magazine cover 1958 Carlo Vivarelli Allianz - 1954 Richard Lohse Konstruktive Grafik - 1958 Hans Neuburg
In 1958, Josef Müller-Brockmann together with Richard Lohse, a Concrete painter, Hans Neuburg, graphic designer and Carlo Vivarelli, architect and artist, launched the magazine Neue Grafik – New Graphic Design - in which they exposed the Swiss Style to the rest of the world. Neue Grafik marked a development in gridbased design with the realisation of a module – a small unit of space which, through repetition, integrates all parts of a page. Columns and rows were defined by the module and groups of modules combined into zones were given a particular purpose. Josef Müller-Brockmann and his colleagues used almost exclusively Akzidenz Grotesk in just two sizes, for headline and body text. Neue Haas Grotesk, renamed Helvetica - The Swiss typeface - was later used in the publication. Designed by Max Miedinger and commisioned by Eduard Hoffmann for the Haas Foundy in 1957, this typeface presented more refined characteristics that suited the Swiss Style better and soon became the iconic typeface of the International Style.
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legacy
Neue Grafik #6 9 Neue Grafik #6 7
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Josef Müller-Brockmann was a key figure in the projection of the Swiss Style which played a crucial role in the history of modernism. With Neue Grafik, him and his colleagues exposed the Swiss Style to the rest of the world. Its adoption helped give ‘ Information Design’ a typographical language and organisation.
legacy de theatre compagnie gilgamesj - poster 2005 Experimental Jetset 50 years of Helvetica poster 2007 Build poster George & Vera
In spite of the reactionary antistructural ideas posed by Postmodernism and Deconstruction, and the implementation of alternative organizational methods which took
place in the 1980s and 1990s, the use of the typographic grid has continued to play an important role in graphic design and has helped designers to structure communications. This can be seen in
examples of design from Experimental Jet Set, a graphic team based in Amsterdam, George&Vera, a branding consultancy working across three studios – London, Glasgow
and New YorkBuild, a design studio based in London, and many other contemporary designers around the world.
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Josef Müller-Brockmann’s importance Josef Müller-Brockmann’s importance as a designer was not only relevant in his time, but his work exerted an important influence in visual communication in the 21st century. His aspiration towards what is eternally valid through the implementation of the grid-system to produce rational and economic designs which aimed at communicating a message in a clear and objective manner, had a huge impact in modern design. The timeless nature of this designs given by their simplicity, clean use of typography, shapes and colours is still inspirational for many graphic designers today.
Viertes Juni FestKonzert poster 1960 Josef Müller-Brockmann
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Tannhauser Bluthochzeit poster 1966 Josef M端ller-Brockmann
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