Josef Müller Brockmann

  Life and Influences                 Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914-1996), the father of Swiss Graphic Design was a pioneer by influencing all areas of design in Switzerland and in Europe during the 1950s. His use of grids, geometric ele-ments and objective photography led him to become an influential teacher at the Zurich school of arts and crafts and consultant at European advertising companies. He is classified as part of the Swiss International Style, Joseph Müller-Brockmann was influenced by the ideas of several different design and art movements including Constructivism, De Stijl, Supremacist and the Bauhaus. 

  He was born in Rapperswil, Switzerland and studied architecture, design and history of art at the University of Zurich and at the city’s Kunstgewerbe-schule. As he recalls he became a graphic designer by accident. At school instead of writing composi-tions he submitted illustrations instead. His teacher enjoyed them and thought he had talent and en-couraged him to pursue an artistic career: gravure etching or retouching, for instance. Following that he became an apprentice for two graphic designers, which led him to enroll at the Zurich Gewerbeschule to study graphic design.   

  His first step toward a professional career was his training to Walter Diggleman, a designer and advertising consultant. In 1936, Brockmann opened his own Zurich studio which specialized in photography, graphics and exhibition design. In just two decades he established his position as the country’s leading practitioner and theorist of Swiss Style. He created a universal graphic ex-pression employing a grid-based design exclusive of subjective feeling and extraneous illustration. He remained its co-editor from 1958 to 1965.                                                                 

  Additionally, Müller-Brockmann co-founded the trilingual journal Neue Grafik (New Graphic Design) with H. Neuburg, R.P. Lohse and C. Vivarelli and re-mained 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 in-structor. 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 Gestal-tung, Ulm.  In 1967, IBM offered him a position as a European design consultant.

  Besides teaching and serving as design consul-tant, Müller-Brockmann also authored several books on graphic designing. Some of his notable written works include “The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems”, “History of Visual Communication” and “Grid Systems in Graphic Design.” In 1971, he col-laborated with Shizuko Müller-Yoshikawa in writing History of the Poster. His contribution to numerous symposiums is considered valuable to graphic de-signing industry. Furthermore, he held multitude of one-man exhibitions globally.

Josef Müller Brockmann in his office, 1970

Geschichte des Plakates, Zurich,1971

Work Tonhalle Concert Poster, Zurich,1955

  His designs are based on firm principles: a moral belief in the integrity of communication; an ethical belief in the designer’s social responsibil-ity; and an esthetic belief in the value of Con-structivism as a means to bring order and clarity to informational and built environments. These beliefs have informed Brockmann’s work and influenced the evolution of its form and underly-ing system of values. These beliefs are reflected through numerous of his works but especially in his posters for the Zurich Town Hall. 

  Brockmann did a series of posters called “Music Viva” for Zurich Town Hall as advertisements for its theater productions in 1951. These posters drew on the language of Constructivism to create a visual correlative to the structural harmonies of the music. His work are graphic, rather than illustrative. Brockmann used his grid in order to create a mathematical harmony, which reflected similarly the harmony of music. Prior to Brock-mann no one had even created such bold and different ways to convey a visual message when dealing with music. It is arguably claimed that his work was an adaptation of concrete art; which had been described by Theo van Doesburg around 1930, “as works of art that are created by means of art’s most genuine means of composi-tion and principles, entirely doing without allu-sions to phenomenon of nature and their abstrac-tion”. New realities were supposed to be created by forming colors, space, light and movement.

  The style had to incorporate mathematical meth-ods of spatial organization into graphic work, which drew on the language of Constructivism to create a visual correlative to the structural harmonies of the music. Brockmann’s 1955 poster, Beethoven, was supposed to portray Beethoven’s music through a series of concen-tric curves, and has been offered as an example such an adaptation, and this assertion had been accepted at its face value by many pundits, who were impressed by the novelty, elegance and the simplicity of design. As Brockmann said: 

  “In my designs for posters, advertisements, brochures and exhibitions, subjectivity is sup-pressed in favor of a geometric grid that deter-mines the arrangement of the type and images. The grid is an organizational system that makes it easier to read the message. The grid is an or-ganizational system that enables you to achieve an orderly result at a minimum cost. The task is solved more easily, faster and better. It brings the arbitrary organization of text into a logical system in keeping with the conflict. It can demonstrate 

Less noise, Zurich,1960.

Musica Viva, Tonhalle,Zurich,1960

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, Brockmann was asked about his inclination toward systematic order in design-ing 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. However, he always aspired to attain a distinct arrangement of typographic and pictorial ele-ments. He claimed that the white reverse sides of his posters were his best work. He was once influenced by Carl Jung but later grew withdrawn. He was of the view that the unconscious is part of the support structure of his work. In his work he aspired to communicate information about an idea, event or product as vividly as possible. In fact, his work is not intended to make a timeless statement but rather to invite his audience to form their own opinion on the subject.

De Film, Zurich, 1960

Historical Context   Brockmann was an important figure emerging from the Swiss International Style not only because of his work but also because he exported its promi-nent ideas in Europe, the United States and Japan. He achieved this by giving lectures for over a period of time of 40 years. Starting from the 1950’s, while he was working on several projects such as his series of works for the Zürich Tonhalle Concerts in 1955, Brockmann also managed to give lectures in the International Design Conference (1956), the World Design Conference in Tokyo (1960), the University of Osaka (1961) and at Ulm Hochschule fur Gestaltung (1962-1963) to influence designers from all over the world.

  At the same time, the designer was writing several books on Swiss graphic design such as “Graphic Designer and his Design Problems” (1961), “A his-tory of Visual Communication” (1971) and his most prominent book “Grid Systems in Graphic Design” (1981). Grid Systems were widely used through out the International style and were mostly used as a way of helping graphic designers keep a logical and consistent organization of information.They were an important factor in life and work as they represented the guidelines he followed in his work as well as in life.

Das Freundliche Hand-zeichen, Schützt vor Unfällen, Zurich, 1954

beyond national boundaries, a boon to advertis-ing from which IBM, for instance, has profited.” 

  The ethical context for Brockmann’s life cannot be overstated. Specifically, Graphis magazine states that his ethics governed his work from the 1950s on, as he declined work for liquor, tobacco, war games, military, real estate and politics. The moment when Brockmann made a conscious decision to no longer design for Turmac, a cigarette manufacturer, after learning that nicotine causes cancer. Hence, due to the ethical message he was advocating in the New Graphic Design, Brockmann no longer included “harmful commodities” in his professional work. Brockmann claims that the designer should have a sense of responsibility for the contributions they make to society. In his own words, he states that professional ethos is work that maintains the “intelligible, objective, functional, and aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking.” These beliefs are reflected through numerous of his work such as Cycliste - attention (1958) and Das Freundliche Handzeichen, Schützt vor Unfällen (1954) in which a simple gesture of a handshake is seen. In most languages the gesture of a handshake is the solidification of a deal.The gesture in his posters, represents a friendly handshake over an automo-bile transaction. In fact the literal translation of “Das Freundliche Handzeichen” is “ the amicable meeting with a hand gesture” The text “ Schutzt vor Unfallen” translates to “protection against an accident”.

Beethoven, TonhalleGesellschaft, Zurich, 1955 

Cycliste - attention, Zurich, 1958

Beethoven, Tonhalle Gesellschaft, Zurich, 1955 

Grid Systems in Graphic Design, 1981

In this book, the Swiss designer explained the importance for creating a well balanced and structured design. His method of dividing space into a number of consistent horizontal and vertical units, each with consistent spacing between them is explained thoroughly in Grid Systems in Graphic Design. Brockmann believed that following those guidelines would conclude to a dynamic but at the same time harmo-nious design. These books helped shape modern graphic design as they became a bible and a guide for emerging designers. 

  1993 was a crucial year for the Swiss designer as his only son, Andreas Brockmann passed away  which deeply traumatized and shocked him. During that period, Brockmann stopped travelling around Europe giving lectures and working on any graphic work. Just couple of months after, his project for SBB (Swiss Railways) was awarded the Swiss Design Prize which prooved to be a distraction and incourage him to continue giving lectures and any written work. 

  A year later, Brockmann published his last book in German called the “Visual Communication and structural design: A pioneer of poster art.”

Lydia Ioannidou

NEU 2015

Müller Lars, Rand, Paul. Josef Müller Brockmann: Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design. 1994. Lars 

Muller Publishers. Print 

Purcell William, Kerry. Josef Müller Brockmann. 2006. Phaidon Press. Print

issuu.com/jenr13/docs/jmb.swissstyle

eyemagazine.com/feature/

Josef Müller Brockmann giving a lecture at the the International Design Conference,1956

Graphic Designer and his Design Problems, 1961

While Brockmann was becoming one of the most influential designers in Switzerland, in the United States new ideas were emerging through famous designer George Lois. Lois did several campaigns in the 1950s to 1980s that shaped modern print adver-tising caused from his controversial tactics, creativity and boldness in work. Lois designed a series of cov-ers for Esquire magazine thats are still remembered for the use of large, bold titles and controversial pho-tography addressing social, economic and political issues. Inevitably, his work became as famous as he was transforming graphic design and experimenting with different approaches and ideas. In comparison with Brockmann’s posters, George Lois rejected the mathematical aspect of design,   as he didn’t use a grid while he was creating his posters. Lois was open to using a variety of colors and eye catching photography. 

  Around the same time, the Psychedelic move-ment was also prevailing in pop culture. The name “psychedelic” refered to drugs that were popular with the youth culture of the time. It was largely inspired by Art Nouveou curvilinear drawings and typogra-phy. This movement had an effect, in music, album covers but also on many aspects of popular culture. This included style of dress, language and the way people spoke, art, literature and philosophy.

Cover for Esquire Magazine by George Lois, 1968

Psychedelic poster by Victor Moscoso, 1960