GRID SYSTEMS IN GRAPHIC DESIGN
Raster Systeme fur Die Visuelle Gestaltung
Josef Müller-Brockmann
Josef Müller-Brockmann: GRID SYSTEMS IN GRAPHIC DESIGN [Raster Systeme für Die Visuelle Gestaltung]. Zürich: Verlag Niggli, 1981. Seventh edition, 2010 [Subtitled “A visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and three dimensional designers.”]. Text in English and German. Quarto. Glazed boards decorated in black. 176 pp. 357 illustrations. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. A fine copy.
8.5 x 12 hardcover book with 176 pages and 357 black and white examples of the grid in action. With examples on how to work correctly at a conceptual level and exact instructions for using all of the systems (8 to 32 fields), this guidebook provides a crystal-clear framework for problem-solving. The definitive word on using grid systems in graphic design.
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.
From the book“A visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and three-dimensional designers, 176 pages, 357 examples and illustrations , cloth. We are indebted to the exponents of objective and functional typography and graphic design for the development of a regulative system in visual communication. As long ago as the twenties works conceived in objective terms and composed in accordance with strict principles were being produced in the fields of typography, graphic design and photography in Europe.”
“In an earlier book by the author, published in 1961, a brief account was given in words and pictures of the grid system. Subsequently articles appeared from time to time in the trade press dealing with the subject of the grid. This book is an attempt to close the gap. The examples range from works consisting of text only to type and picture areas comprising from 8 to 32 grid fields. A special chapter is devoted to the grid in three-dimensional design. The author, who has a worldwide reputation as a master of his craft, thus places in the hands of his colleagues an instrument with which they can more readily find answers to the design problems confronting them.”
“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."