From Josef Müller-Brockmann to Armin Hofmann
The grid philosophy in Swiss Style
Introduction
Swiss graphic design won a great reputation all over the world. It 's intense conceptual approach, ceremonial concentration, and high accuracy in the realisation of the design which formed a distinctive style in that period (Brandle, Gimmi, Junod, Reble, Richter 2014). Josef Müller-Brockmann as a leading pioneer of the Swiss Style played an important role in that time. Particularly, his manifesto grid and design philosophy published in Grid systems in graphic design were followed by a number of designers up to now. In the manifesto he talked about the significant statue grids are in the design and the advantages they bring to the society.
Müller-Brockmann, …show more content…
Design should conform to the common aesthetics. According to the system of a grid, designers can easily follow the rules and work rapidly and efficiently. It improves the integration of all factors in an image. The integral standard of designers in the whole society will be improved while the taste of the society will be enhanced. It is important in the social and political life. The philosophy of grid had become a necessary routine by the 1960s as Müller-Brockmann’s book The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems first published in 1961. In the book, he presented his own way of design and introduced the grid to designers worldwide. The grid became to had a tight connect with the style and approaches of Swiss Style, as Hollis (p178, para.3, 2007) said, ‘the grid came to imply the style and methods of Swiss graphic …show more content…
He mostly expressed his design principle through education and he started to be a teacher at Basel School of Arts and Crafts in 1947 (DJ 2012). After he became an educationist, he grew a sharp and standalone intuitiveness fused with his abundant and creative powers of visual presentation. He and his colleagues and his students devoted themselves to theory and practise around the Swiss Style (Design is history n.d.). They focused on simple work applied into ‘new techniques of photo-typesetting, photo-montage and experimental composition and heavily favoured sans-serif typography’ in unconditional and general style of graphic design (Design is history n.d., para 1). The majority of Hofmann’s posters are for culture events with a variety of style. His early design, which was mostly based on silhouetted and big letters so that it is easy to be reproduced by linocut. The marketable feature of Hofmann’s work was that mainly based on the basic elements of dots, lines and shapes. He published the Graphic Design Manual:Principles and Practice in 1965 perfectly extracted his educational approach (Poynor 2011). He spelt out the use of these elements and focused on ‘the combination of plane surfaces and three-dimensional elements’ ( p14, para 3, Hofmann 1965). In the book, dots and lines are grouped by a variety of laws. Even though lines and dots seem to be placed randomly, it showed the feeling of tidy. Hofmann’s works
The grid philosophy in Swiss Style
Introduction
Swiss graphic design won a great reputation all over the world. It 's intense conceptual approach, ceremonial concentration, and high accuracy in the realisation of the design which formed a distinctive style in that period (Brandle, Gimmi, Junod, Reble, Richter 2014). Josef Müller-Brockmann as a leading pioneer of the Swiss Style played an important role in that time. Particularly, his manifesto grid and design philosophy published in Grid systems in graphic design were followed by a number of designers up to now. In the manifesto he talked about the significant statue grids are in the design and the advantages they bring to the society.
Müller-Brockmann, …show more content…
Design should conform to the common aesthetics. According to the system of a grid, designers can easily follow the rules and work rapidly and efficiently. It improves the integration of all factors in an image. The integral standard of designers in the whole society will be improved while the taste of the society will be enhanced. It is important in the social and political life. The philosophy of grid had become a necessary routine by the 1960s as Müller-Brockmann’s book The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems first published in 1961. In the book, he presented his own way of design and introduced the grid to designers worldwide. The grid became to had a tight connect with the style and approaches of Swiss Style, as Hollis (p178, para.3, 2007) said, ‘the grid came to imply the style and methods of Swiss graphic …show more content…
He mostly expressed his design principle through education and he started to be a teacher at Basel School of Arts and Crafts in 1947 (DJ 2012). After he became an educationist, he grew a sharp and standalone intuitiveness fused with his abundant and creative powers of visual presentation. He and his colleagues and his students devoted themselves to theory and practise around the Swiss Style (Design is history n.d.). They focused on simple work applied into ‘new techniques of photo-typesetting, photo-montage and experimental composition and heavily favoured sans-serif typography’ in unconditional and general style of graphic design (Design is history n.d., para 1). The majority of Hofmann’s posters are for culture events with a variety of style. His early design, which was mostly based on silhouetted and big letters so that it is easy to be reproduced by linocut. The marketable feature of Hofmann’s work was that mainly based on the basic elements of dots, lines and shapes. He published the Graphic Design Manual:Principles and Practice in 1965 perfectly extracted his educational approach (Poynor 2011). He spelt out the use of these elements and focused on ‘the combination of plane surfaces and three-dimensional elements’ ( p14, para 3, Hofmann 1965). In the book, dots and lines are grouped by a variety of laws. Even though lines and dots seem to be placed randomly, it showed the feeling of tidy. Hofmann’s works