the class-o-matic

Josef Müller-Brockmann"...In the ever-evolving world of the contemporary graphic design those who came before are often forgotten in the search of the next big thing.

It is surprising then that many new, fashionable designs intentionally conjure work that was created by designers of earlier era - designers who worked not with a computer but with pen and paper - designers like Josef Müller-Brockmann.
One of the 20th. centurys most important graphic designers, the Swiss-born Müller Brockmann is the father of functional,objective design and an influential figure for generations of designers around the world. While many contemporaries moved to the United States and elsewhere in Europe, Müller-Brockmann based himself in Zurich and established his reputation there.

He adapted his approach to a changing world, moving from an early illustrative style to a modern constructivist approach, making full use of geometrical form and the grid system to provide an underlying structure to graphic work." written by Kerry William Purcell













'I would advise young people to look at everything they encounter in a critical light . . .
Then I would urge them at all times to be self-critical' Josef Müller-Brockmann














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Josef Müller-Brockmann was born in Switzerland in 1914 and studied architecture, design and art history at the University of Zurich and at the city's Kunstegewerbeschule. He began his career as an apprentice to the designer Walter Diggelman, and then, in 1936, establishing his own Zurich studio specialising in graphics, exhibition design and photography.Müller-Brockmann was founder and, from 1958 to 1965, co-editor of the trilingual journal Neue Grafik (New Graphic Design) which spread the principles of Swiss design internationally. He was also a professor of graphic design at the Kunstgewerbeschule, in Zurich from 1950 to 1960 .

By the 1950s he was established as the leading practitioner and theorist of the Swiss Style, which sought a universal graphic expression through a grid-based design purged of extraneous illustration and subjective feeling.