#mullerbrockmann

Shizuko Yoshikawa // 1985 // Variation I – III // Published by Meissner, Hamburg

These lithographs were distributed as a premium to first class customers of Lufthansa Airlines as part of their “Artists of the World” series.

Following the Second World War and Cold War, Europe was left in fear of further destruction. There were no rules, no structure - just chaos. The Modernist design era arrived to reform the rules and providing scaffolding to the structure, controlling the chaos with universal boundaries. By breaking design down into it’s functional forms, it became about reliable pieces that could be accessed and understood by all, fitting into grids and families to retain the order that was so desperately desired. 

A combination of European designers and design houses provided the fuel for the revolution, notably Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The Bauhaus, De Stijl and Constructivist movements all influenced designers such as Josef Muller-Brockmann, Jan Tschichold and Armin Hofmann, who became the icons for the Modernist graphic design era. Their work became known as the International Typographic Style, and worked under strict grid systems. Work became stripped back to it’s bones. It’s purpose was the critical decider of it’s appearance, reducing elaboration to increase capacity for function. 

Akidenz Grotesk, Helvetica and Univers arguably defined the typographic style of the period, with The success of these fonts stemmed from their neutrality, and, as Wim Crouwel says “neutralism was a word that we loved. It should be neutral. It shouldn’t have a meaning in itself. The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface”. Although this may have changed over the years for Helvetica, which became the most successful commercial typeface and one that can sell based on its appearance rather than the message it portrays, the principles of the Modernist style still remain within, and define an era which has remained near permanent in modern design on all formats. 

But, as so regularly cliched, rules are made to be broken, and this invited a new reform and trend of design; Post-Modernism. If the Swiss Style represents a tall, structured, gridded building in the city of Basel, post-modernism represents the colourful graffiti covering its walls. The Swiss Punk style emerged and brought a radical freedom to design, a new aesthetic that was crude, impure, chaotic and irregular. 

Wolfgang Weingart epitomized the Swiss Punk typographic style, taking the Swiss Style as a starting point and blowing it apart. In his words, “what’s the point of being legible, if nothing inspires you to take notice of it?”. The expressive, unlocked style that emerged was attacked by the Swiss elders, not because of it’s aesthetic but because it represented the demise of the Modernist hegemony. 

Josef Müller-Brockmann changed the face of the design industry and was a pioneer in the Swiss Design movement. Born in 1914, he studied design, architecture and history of art at the University of Zurich before opening his own studio in 1936. 

Influenced by the ideas of several design and art movements, such as Constructivism, De Stijl, Suprematism and the Bauhaus, JMB sought a universal graphic expression through grid-based design. He wrote the pivotal book "Grid Systems in Graphic Design", which has become the definitive word on the use of grids, even to this day. 

The style he largely created came at a time when Europe was left in fear of destruction, following the World War II and the Cold War. His work was linked to the Constructivism and Modernist period, which featured other key Western designers such as Jan Tschichold. They aimed to bring order to a chaotic world, by breaking design down into its functional forms, prioritising function over form as a result. 

"Perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away" Antoine de Saint-Exupery

An important component of JMB's objective philosophy was functional typographic solution. "The less elaborate the letterform, the more capacity for function" as he said himself, signified his love for the sans-serif typeface. His favourite was Berthold's Akzidenz Grotesk, and remained so even following the emergence of Helvetica and Univers in the late 1950s due to it's more universal formal foundations and increased expression. 

JMB produced a series of posters for the Zurich Town Hall's theatre productions, exemplified here through his iconic Beethoven poster. His graphical representation of music creates a mathematical harmony, releasing a musical harmony as a result. His influence can be seen on the jazz and fusion albums in America at the time, as one of the first to represent musically graphically as opposed to illustratively.

Following his death in 1996, the rules and structure of his work have still lived on. Despite leading designers such as Neville Brody discarding JMB's rules on legible and functional sans-serif type, the Swiss Style will remain one of the most influential movements in the industry. 

Sources

'The Objective Text' by Dr. P. Wilson (2012)

http://www.designishistory.com/1940/joseph-mueller-brockmann/

http://www.blanka.co.uk/design/muller-brockmann

http://ilovetypography.com/2013/01/12/a-firm-turn-toward-the-objective-josef-muller-brockmann-1948-1981/

http://wordsandeggs.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/josef-muller-brockmann-pioneer-of-swiss-graphic-design/