Theory into Practice: Quotes from Swiss Modernists

Josef Müller-Brockmann

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 how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.

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.

I still reserve the right, at any time, to doubt the solutions
furnished by the Modular, keeping intact my freedom, which must
depend on my feelings rather than my reason.

The use of the grid implies
the will to systematize, to clarify
the will to penetrate to the essentials, to concentrate
the will to cultivate objectivity instead of subjectivity
the will to rationalize the creative and technical production processes
the will to integrate elements of colour, form and material
the will to achieve architectural dominion over surface and space
the will to adopt a positive, forward-thinking attitude
the recognition of the importance of education and the effect of work devised in a constructive and creative spirit.

There are various reasons for using the grid as an aid in the organization of text and illustration. Economic reasons: a problem can be solved in less time and at lower cost. Rational reasons: both simple and complex problems can be solved in a uniform and characteristic style. Mental attitude: the systematic presentation of facts, of sequences of events, and of solutions to problems should, for social and educational reasons, be a constructive contribution to the cultural state of society and an expression of our sense of responsibility.

Max Bill

Even in modern art, artists have used methods based on calculation, inasmuch as these elements, alongside those of a more personal and emotional nature, give balance and harmony to any work of art.

Far from creating a new formalism, what these can yield is something far transcending surface values since they not only embody form as beauty, but also form in which intuitions or ideas or conjectures have taken visible substance.

I made the first Moebius strip without knowing what it was.

The orbit of human vision has widened and art has annexed fresh territories that were formerly denied to it.

Thus, the more succinctly a train of thought was expounded, and the more comprehensive the unity of its basic idea, the closer it would approximate to the prerequisites of the mathematical way of thinking.

We call those works of art concrete that came into being on the basis of their inherent resources and rules - without external borrowing from natural phenomena, without transforming those phenomena, in other words: not by abstraction.

The requirements of language and legibility must be fulfilled before purely aesthetic considerations can be introduced. A text-image will always be most perfect when it combines a logical path for the eye to follow and balances typographical and aesthetics demands.

Emil Ruder

Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty. A printed work which cannot be read becomes a product without purpose.

They should make new ways to better design buildings and books. The computer was the end of Swiss typography!