Josef Muller-Brockmann, a master of grid system. Designed by Eduardo Cordeiro

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his career as an apprentice to the designer and advertising consultant Walter Diggelman before, in 1936, establishing his own Zurich studio specializing in graphics, exhibition design and photography. By the 1950s he was established as the leading practitioner and theorist of Swiss Style, which sought a universal graphic expression through a grid-based design purged of extraneous illustration and subjective feeling.

Muller-brockmann’s ideads and designs stand for objective, minimalism and geometric design. Josef invented the grid system which was the very first systematically to outcome the history of visual communication. When I first encountered his work I completely felt in love with everything of his style. The influence of the Bauhaus, the constructivism, the supermatism and De Stijl totally drew my eye to the world of graphic design in a different perspective. In his work , i s c l e a r l y e v i d e n t t h a t f o r him the empty and white space are not just a space with nothing. It is also a shape and a form of space.

For him this form of space was the key element to achieve balance in t h e w h o l e o f h i s w o r k . Additionally, Müller-Brockmann co-founded the trilingual journal Neue Grafik (New Graphic Design) with H. Neuburg, R.P. Lohse and C. Vivarelli and remained its co-editor from 1958 to 1965. The journal focused on the Swiss Design and its publication for international readers. Late 1950s was marked as the time when he began his career as an art instructor. At the Kunstgewerbeschule, Zurich, he was appointed as a professor of graphic design. During early 1960s, he filled the position of guest lecturer at the University of Osaka and Hochschule fur Gestaltung, Ulm. In 1967, IBM offered him a position as a European design consultant.

1914 - 1996

Josef began

“The greatest works of art impress through their balance, their harmony, their proportions, all of which can be measured”.

Josef Muller-Brockmann

Neue Grafik Kunstgewerbe

Josep Müller-Brockmann, Auto Club of Switzerland Poster, 1955

Neue Grafik was the single most important factor in establishing the international influence of Swiss graphic design. Publication was heralded, but not explicitly, in Spring 1958 by the ‘Konstruktive Graflk’ exhibition, although Josef Müller-Brockmann gives a precise date and place for Neue Grafiks conception: 15 February 1956 at the Seilbahn restaurant in Zurich. Muller-Brockmann, together with the exhibition’s participants- Lohse, Hans Neuburg and Carlo L. Vivarelli made up the editorial team.

Josef Muller-Brockmann

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Müller-Brockmann also authored several books on graphic designing. Some of his notable works include The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems (1961), History of Visual Communication and Grid Systems in Graphic Design. In 1971, he collaborated with Shizuko Müller-Yoshikawa in writing History of the Poster. His contribution to numerous symposiums is considered valuable to graphic designing industry. Furthermore, he held multitude of one-man exhibitions globally. Some of the major cities where he exhibited his seminal work include Paris, Stuttgart, Berlin, Munich, Tokyo, Osaka, New York, Chicago, and Caracas. The State of Zurich presented him a gold medal to honor his work and his cultural contribution, in 1987.

In an interview, Müller-Brockmann was asked about his inclination toward systematic order in designing given he advocated objective and radically minimalist geometric design and was the one who invented grid system for graphic design. In response, he explained that finding order in everything is rather a wishful thinking on his part. he always aspired to attain a distinct arrangement of typographic and pictorial elements. He claimed that the white reverse sides of his posters were his best work. Josef Müller-Brockmann work is best known for its simple designs and clean use of typography. The shapes and colors he incorporated in his work still inspire the graphic designers of current generation. He passed away on August 30, 1996.

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