Josef Muller-Brockman

Josef Muller-Brockman is considered the most prominent figure in Swiss graphic design by most critics. He is well known for his use of the grid and his clean and clear use of text. He was also a teacher, founder and head editor of New Graphic Design, and author of many books on design.
After leaving an apprenticeship, attending courses as the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts, doing some freelance design, and serving as a lieutenant in the Swiss military, Brockman pushed away from his previous illustrative style and reworked his studio for graphic design. His first successful poster, many critics agree was “Watch that Child!” which was designed for the Swiss Automobile Club. A few years later, now more established in the feild of graphic design, he became a teacher at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts, where he once attended.
While teaching he created the New Graphic Design Magazine along with Richard Lohse. There were only eighteen issues, however, Brockman’s modular grid system was used to keep the layout between all of the issues uniform. He describes this system nearly two decades later in his book Grid Systems in Graphic Design. This book, quite possibly his most notable written work, offers a complete description of how the grid can be used to achieve visual harmony and rationality. Nevertheless, it does not encourage the designer to obey the grid in every respect. As one can see in Brockman’s work, he feels as though it is necessary to sometimes break our of the grid; the book describes this too.