Josef Müller-Brockmann

Josef Müller-Brockmann came into the world in Rapperswil in 1914. He is known for being a Swiss graphic designer and teacher. Müller-Brockmann was an apprentice to designer and advertising consultant Walter Diggelman. He studied architecture, design, and art history in Zurich. He eventually opened his own study in Zurich. He became known for promoting the Swiss Style. This style sought a “universal graphic expression” using a grid-based design. This style also left out irrelevant illustration and subjective feeling. He was founder of the trilingual journal Neue Grafik which spread the Swiss Style. He was a graphic design professor in Zurich and in Ulm for a combination of six years. After that he became a European design consultant for IBM. He wrote The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems and History of Visual Communication. He had exhibitions in Zurich, Bern, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin, Paris, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Osaka, Caracas and Zagreb. Müller-Brockmann wrote Grid systems in graphic design. This influential work helped spread the use of the grid in Europe and then North America. By the mid 1970s the typographic grid was taught to graphic design students in Europe, North America, and parts of Latin America. The typographic grid continues to be taught today, but is not absolutely necessary for all page design.