Josef Müller-Brockmann, (May 9, 1914, in Rapperswil – August 30, 1996), was a Swiss graphic designer and teacher. He studied architecture,design and history of art at both the University and Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich. In 1936 he opened his Zurich studio specialising in graphic design, exhibition design and photography. From 1951 he produced concert posters for the Tonhalle in Zurich. In 1958 he became a founding editor of New Graphic Design along with R.P. Lohse, C. Vivarelli, and H. Neuburg. In 1966 he was appointed European design consultant to IBM. Müller-Brockman was author of the 1961 publications The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems, Grid Systems in Graphic Design where he advocates use of the grid for page structure, and the 1971 publications History of the Poster and A History of Visual Communication.
Max Bill
Max Bill (22 December 1908 – 9 December 1994) was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer.
Bill was born in Winterthur. After an apprenticeship as a silversmith during 1924-1927, Bill took up studies at the Bauhaus in Dessau under many teachers including Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer from 1927 to 1929, after which he moved to Zurich.
From 1937 onwards he was a prime mover behind the Allianz group of Swiss artists and in 1944, he became a professor at the school of arts in Zurich.
In 1953, Max Bill, Inge Aicher-Scholl and Otl Aicher founded the Ulm School of Design (German: Hochschule für Gestaltung - HfG Ulm) in Ulm, Germany, a design school initially created in the tradition of the Bauhaus and which later developed a new design education approach integrating art and science. The school is notable for its inclusion of semiotics as a field of study. The school closed in 1968. Faculty and students included: Tomás Maldonado, Otl Aicher, Joseph Albers, Johannes Itten, John Lottes, Walter Zeischegg, and Peter Seitz.Bill was the single most decisive influence on Swiss graphic design beginning in the 1950s with his theoretical writing and progressive work. His connection to the days of the Modern Movement gave him special authority. As an industrial designer, his work is characterized by a clarity of design and precise proportions. Examples are the elegant clocks and watches designed for Junghans, a long-term client. Among Bill's most notable product designs is the "Ulmer Hocker" of 1954, a stool that can also be used as a shelf element or a side table. Although the stool was a creation of Bill and Ulm school designer Hans Gugelot, it is often called "Bill Hocker" because the first sketch on a cocktail napkin was Bill's work.
As a designer and artist, Bill sought to create forms which visually represent the New Physics of the early 20th century. He sought to create objects so that the new science of form could be understood by the senses: that is as a concrete art. Thus Bill is not a rationalist -as is typically thought- but rather a phenomenologist. One who understands embodiment as the ultimate expression of a concrete art. In this way he is not some much extending as re-interpreting Bauhaus theory. Yet curiously Bill's critical interpreters have not really grasped this fundamental issue. A prime example is his sculptural work using the Möbius strip form.
Emil Ruder (1914–1970) was a Swiss typographer and graphic designer, who with Armin Hofmann helped to found the Schule für Gestaltung Basel (Basel School of Design) and a graphic style known as the Swiss Style.
Ruder was a contributing writer and editor for Typografische Monatsblätter. Ruder published a basic grammar of typography titled Emil Ruder: Typopgraphy. The text was published in German, English and French, by Swiss publisher Arthur Niggli in 1967. The book helped spread and propagate the Swiss Style, and became a basic text for graphic design and typography programs in Europe and North America. In 1962 he helped to found the International Center for the Typographic Arts (ICTA) in New York.
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