GESTALTUNGSPROBLEME DES GRAFIKERS
The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems
Les Problèmes d’un artiste graphique
Josef Müller-Brockmann
Josef Müller-Brockmann: GESTALTUNGSPROBLEME DES GRAFIKERS [The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems / Les Problèmes d’un artiste graphique]. Teufen: Verlag Arthur Niggli, 1968. Third edition. Text in German, English and French. Oblong quarto. White cloth boldly titled in black. Printed dust jacket. 186 pp. 708 black and white and color illustrations. Book design by the author. First signature pulled. Red ink neat underlining to text sections throughout. Jacket with edge wear, light chipping and vintage tape repairs to verso, so a good copy in a good dust jacket.
10.375 x 9.125 hardcover book with 186 pages and 708 black and white and color illustrations —the closest thing to sitting at the feet of graphic master Müller-Brockmann. The book's three sections deal with the path from illustrative to objective graphic art, the basic considerations determining the attitude of the graphic designer to his work and the system of training developed for the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts [thankfully, this system doesn't include buying a software package].
Contents
- Foreword
- The Graphic Artist And His Task
- From Illustrative to Objective Graphic Art
- Typography in Advertising
- San Serif as an Expression of our Age
- Photography in Advertising
- The Drawing in Advertising
- Color in Advertising
- The Device and the Word Mark in Advertising
- Copy in Advertising
- Uniformity in Advertising
- Form Appropriate to the Advertising Message
- The Grid as an Aid in the Design of Newspaper Advertisements, Catalogues, Exhibitions, etc.
- The Graphic Artist as Exhibition Designer
- Cultural Publicity
- Concert Posters for the Tonhalle Gesellschaft Zurich
- Photographic Experiments
- Teamwork
- A Training System for the Graphic Designer
Includes work by Ruedi Rüegg, Peter Andermatt, Ursula Keller, Christof Gassner, Nicoletta Baroni, and others.
The ideals of clarity and precision in graphic design as achieved through order and organization were promulgated in the early 20th-century by such figures as Théo van Doesburg, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, and Herbert Bayer. This new emphasis on functionalism and systematically ordered typography achieved its fruition in Switzerland in the 1930s and continued to develop through the 1960s. Centered around two schools in Zurich and Basel, this design movement became known as the Swiss Graphic Arts School. A major player in the development of this style since the 1930s, Josef Mueller-Brockmann is internationally renowned for designs with clean, crisp lines based on the orderliness of the grid system.
“As with most graphic designers that can be classified as part of the Swiss International Style, Joseph Müller-Brockmann (Switzerland 1914 – 1996) was influenced by the ideas of several different design and art movements including Constructivism, De Stijl, Suprematism and the Bauhaus. He is perhaps the most well-known Swiss designer and his name is probably the most easily recognized when talking about the period. He was born and raised in Switzerland and by the age of 43 he became a teacher at the Zurich school of arts and crafts.
“Perhaps his most decisive work was done for the Zurich Town Hall as poster advertisements for its theater productions. He published several books, including The Graphic Artist and His Problems and Grid Systems in Graphic Design. These books provide an in-depth analysis of his work practices and philosophies, and provide an excellent foundation for young graphic designers wishing to learn more about the profession. He spent most of his life working and teaching, even into the early 1990s when he toured the US and Canada speaking about his work. He died in Zurich in 1996. — Kerry Williams Purcell
Excerpted from Yvonne Schwemer-Scheddin's "A Conversation with Josef Müller-Brockmann," Eye, Winter, 1995: Josef Müller-Brockmann . . . "began his career as an apprentice to the designer and advertising consultant Walter Diggelman before, in 1936, establishing his own Zurich studio specialising in graphics, exhibition design and photography. 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 . . . . 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 professor of graphic design at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Zurich from 1957 to 1960 and the Hochschule fur Gestaltung, Ulm from 1963. From 1967 he was European design consultant for IBM."