Josef Muller-Brockman

''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 Muller-Brockman was born in Switzerland in 1914 and studied design, architecture, and art history at the University of Zurich. He started his career as the apprentice to the designer Walter Diggelman, as well as being his advertising consultant. In 1936, Muller-Brockman established his own Zurich studio, which specialized in graphics, exhibition design, and photography. By the 1950’s he was thought of as the original leader in Swiss Style. His innovative technique used graphic expression through a grid-based design without frivolous illustration and subjective feeling. Muller-Brockman was founder and editor of the journal New Graphic Design which took his Swiss design principals international. After this he spent his time as a professor in Zurich. Not only did he revolutionized the design industry immensely with his use of the grid, clear use of text, the journal New Graphic Design, but wrote many design books. His most notable book, Grid Systems in Graphic Design, he explains and encourages the grid system and how it can be used to gain visual harmony within a space. His passion for use of the grid layout inspires many graphic designers to use this technique to this day. Although Josef Muller-Brockman died in 1996, his clean-cut, efficient posters speak for themselves of the benefits with using grid layout and simplicity with text.