BlogmyQuery – BMQ

“Among the few I have indicated, is there no dynamic man of action, the rebel who will help determine the aspect of the collective expression of tomorrow? Ponder this question and know that to make beautiful creations for the sake of their aesthetic value will have no social significance tomorrow, will be non-sensical self-gratification. Every era contains the conditions for providing a rebel.�

- Piet Zwart

Portrait of a Rebel

Personally, I admire the rebels, the forward thinkers, the people despised by society for being “different.� Zwart was, according to several sources, “not an easy man.� He was known for his “indiscretion� and many considered him “self-centered.� When have people like him ever been understood by the mediocre?

Others recall that he was driven to excel. He worked late into the night, usually until three in the morning, set high standards for himself that others thought were unattainable by any person. He was concerned about promoting himself and paranoid about others having the wrong impression of him. As he was named The Most Influential Designer of the Twentieth Century by the Association of Dutch Designers (although some articles on Zwart list it as the Professional Organization of Dutch Designers) in 2000, he obviously succeeded in making his mark, despite the rumors and innuendos from those around him.

Many, it seems in my research probably felt more out of jealousy from Zwart’s ideals of perfection and his insistence on being involved in articles and books about him. The Oxford Journal writes, ‘Yvonne Brentjens’s new monograph… charts his struggle to arrive at an objective, scientific and technically perfect design, hence the word Vormingenieur (engineer of form).’

Piet Zwart was born on May 28^th, 1885 in Zaandijk, North Holland (died in September 27^th, 1977 at the age of 92). From 1902 until 1907 he attended the School of Applied Arts in Amsterdam where it is said there was little division between several disciplines as drawing, painting, architecture and applied arts. Zwart and fellow students developed by themselves with little interference from above, as teachers weren’t always present. “A smashing school with no idea of a program,” as Zwart recalls.

It was this lack of formal classroom training that led him to approach his design, especially typography in a fresh and untraditional way. While the purely horizontal grid design of straightforward type and images was the norm, leading to the Swiss School of Design in the 1940s and 1950s (also read the Noupe article on Swiss School designer, Josef Müller-Brockmann), Zwart felt his designing from his gut.

As with most geniuses, there was a self-initiated method that broke the very same rules he had never learned, or, as I suspect, he cared nothing for and wanted to break. He also experimented in the use of photography incorporated into his designs, leading to photomontages. Still, with all the rule breaking and experimentation, Zwart was concerned with readability, feeling that typography should be clear and functional. If any influence must be assigned, he used the basic principles of constructivism and “De Stijl” in his commercial work.

One must put Zwart’s work into context of the time and design influences. His use of type and montage was incredibly ahead of his time. Even today, such work is inspiring, fresh and unique. His lack of training shows a gift and inner creativity that is individual and comes from deep within. One has to wonder if Zwart’s “difficultâ€� personality, as nay-sayers put it, is a reaction to the misplaced and vociferous opinions of other contemporaries who couldn’t fathom Zwart’s designs.

While time has proved him to be a truly great creative, it must have been hard for him to put up with life as the target of harsh critiques from charlatans and mediocre talents. It’s a great lesson for designers to understand that one’s own creative vision is not fodder for other creatives to comment upon. In the long run, history will be the judge of great creativity and not the opinions of others in the field.

Zwart’s designs for a book for children on the Dutch Postal Telegraph and Telephone system. Sophisticated, fun and informative. It is an incredible visual, using his favorite bright palette and would be enjoyed by kids even today!

He started his career as an architect and he worked for Jan Wils and Berlage. As a designer, Zwart was well known because of his work for both the Nederlandse Kabelfabriek Delft (the Dutch Cable Factory in Delft) and the Dutch Postal Telegraph and Telephone. Today, a designer might look at these as boring jobs but he had great leeway over his creative output and that is yet another lesson he has for modern designers – you can take the most mundane item and make a beautiful design. Can you imagine a cable and wire company today allowing such design for their catalog of products? Perhaps Zwart’s work can be used as an example of the excitement that can be mixed with any product?

He ended up resigning from NKD in 1933 to become an interior, industrial and furniture designer. Perhaps it was his restless nature or perhaps just his desire to self-improve and his yearning to find something just out of his reach. Another lesson to us as we should always try to reach new heights with our design and never settle for the easy path but to keep searching our creative nature to improve ourselves and our design.

Zwart had been fired from the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts in 1933, after he had been quite explicit about the redevelopment of art education. Some say he was teaching communist ideals to his students and some say his progressive ideas had been closely linked to the innovative methods and objectives of the Bauhaus School in Dessau where he was asked to host a number of lessons in 1929.

Oddly enough, the very school that fired him was renamed after Zwart — The Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam. Times often change after it’s too late for the individual. It may have been these personal battles, his inner id being challenged by the industry as well as himself that led to a brilliant madness that drove incredible, ground breaking creativity.

The kitchen he designed for Bruynzeel in 1938 is a good example. It was highly progressive for its time. This was the first time that domestic appliances like a refrigerator and stove could be integrated in the design in a practical way. All the elements were designed with logical proportions, and customers could combine them as they wished. Handy details like glass containers, a pull out breadboard and storage racks made the kitchen a textbook example of comfort and efficiency.

His apple-green pressed glassware compact as tubular tea cups that sit in interlocking hexagonal saucers. ‘The emphasis on form rather than decoration,’ according to an article in New City Art, says, ‘ not only severs ties with the clutter of the Victorian past but identifies everyday items with the values—efficiency, durability, mass distribution—of emerging industrial and communications technologies.’

Early Ikea? Again, think about the time when this was designed. It was incredibly futuristic and set a standard that is still used today.

As with many who lived in the dark days of the Second World War, Zwart, along with 800 other prominent citizens were arrested and held by German soldiers. After the war, when he was released from captivity, he mainly focused on industrial design. One can only imagine what years of captivity did to him. He never spoke of those years. It is amazing he went back to creative work, albeit in another field.

One cannot have much introspection into a person’s private pain. The old saying is that an artist must suffer for their art. Zwart certainly suffered although it’s hard to tell how much of it was self-imposed. It is, however, his legacy of creativity that lives on and has lessons for the creatives of today. His drive and dedication to his vision is a great lesson. His work, if one thinks of the time and culture of his heyday, was such a departure – almost futuristic but he still managed to convince people that his vision was the best way to communicate the message.

As mentioned in this article, he was dedicated to creating a clear and vivid message for the end user. He succeeded on his own terms, despite a stumble in his career, here and there but that only propelled him farther into fame. Our lesson is that little stumbles or failures, if they can be called that and not life lessons, should always push us further into creativity while understanding the work is the most important factor. It is, after all, the legacy of our names that we will eventually leave behind.

(rb)

As young kids, we all had our favorite posters adorning our rooms. From motorcycles to kittens to Justin Bieber photos… for which the coming years will hold guilt and embarrassment. Thanks to my hippie parents, I had Peter Max posters. In fact, I had a Peter Max room! While I loved the Beatles and Yellow Submarine (which was inspired by Max’s work but not done by him), sleeping in a psychedelic room made me the man I am today and please withhold the wisecracks, my longtime friends!

Sure, just try sleeping with über-bright yellows, pinks and oranges glaring through the dark. There was no need for a night-light as the vibrant glow kept me safe from the boogeyman but afraid of longhair love children, sitting in the corner of my room with bongs bubbling. Years later I would discover it wasn’t some childhood phobia but actual friends of my parents smoking pot in the wrong room. Yet something else, considering the second-hand weed smoke, that made me the man I am today. Again… hold off on the comments.

But Peter Max’s work was exciting. It was fresh and innovative and led a generation  — the love generation, to be exact — with visuals and messages that are still adored and worshipped today. Several days after I planned writing this article, I noted that Mr. Max would be appearing at a local gallery. Fortuitous? Karma? Too much second-hand smoke from “Uncle Bongchild?� Whatever it was, I made sure I was there to speak with him and get a few quotes.

A Bit o’ Background

There is a bit of confusion about Max’s actual date of birth, according to several biographies around the web. Some say 1937 and others say 1939. Considering the fact that his family, German Jews, fled Nazi Germany after he was born, the date may be earlier. The official bio on his website gives no date, so I would rather respect his obvious wish to have no date and judging by the man with whom I spoke, I believe numbers are not very important to him.

His family traveled to Shanghai, China, where they lived for the next ten years, according to Wikipedia, and they lived in a house that ‘overlooked a Buddhist temple, where Peter would observe monks painting calligraphic images with large bamboo brushes on large sheets of rice paper.’

The bio goes on to say his Chinese nanny taught him how to hold and paint with a brush by using the movement of his wrist. His mother encouraged him to develop his art skills by leaving a variety of art supplies on the balconies of the pagoda and told him to ‘go ahead and make a mess; we’ll clean it all up after you.’

During my interview with Peter, he did make a point of artists learning to move their wrists for the best training in rendering and control.

In 1948, the family departed China and, according to yet another bio, ‘in fact the young Max would move frequently with his family, learning about a variety of cultures throughout the world while traveling from Tibet to Africa to Israel to Europe until his family moved to the U.S. In America Max was trained at the Art Students League, Pratt Institute, and the School of Visual Arts, all in New York.’

It is said that as a young child he simultaneously developed an interest in art and astronomy. If you follow him on Twitter, you will see posts dealing with art and astronomy! A key insight to his interest in “cosmic art?�

What’s The Real Story Behind The Man and The Myth?

There are many different bios about Mr. Max that dot the internet and they all vary slightly, so only Peter knows what is really true. The point to this writer’s look at Peter Max as a creative is to inspire the readers by his lessons on creative thought and application.

It’s important to note that Peter, like so many other great expressionists — if one can put him in that classification — learned realism before embarking on a style unique to his own vision. As one world-renowned painter once told me, “you need to learn the real world before you can create your own and have it be believable.�

Peter’s art was groundbreaking. That’s a hard position to be in. When you are the first, you face the doubters, the naysayers and the conservative mindset that makes expressing your love for what you believe in an uphill battle.

In all the biographies that one can read, it’s obvious that Peter’s parents supported his creativity and encouraged it. In a time of war and turmoil, moving from the threat of extermination under the Nazis to Shanghai under the control of the Imperial Japanese army during the brutal days of the Second World War, then to a young State of Israel, surrounded by enemies bent on destroying each and every citizen, Peter had to be aware of the tensions around him. It was probably the love and protection of his parents that made those years not so frightening for him. Throughout it all, there was art in which to immerse himself. Perhaps it was the world that he best knew and it gave him comfort.

With his family moving to Brooklyn, New York in the early 1950s, Peter was now part of a city that celebrated art and gave him many avenues to grow as a professional. His earliest work to gain attention was collages of photographic images, and it won a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators in 1962.

Love, Peace and Art

The 1960s saw big cultural changes. The sexual revolution, the nightly broadcasts of the war in Vietnam, “doves and hawks,� “tune in, turn on, drop out,� “make love, not war� burning bras and draft cards and the growth of casual drug usage — it all happened very fast and people sought to find other “planes of reality.� It wasn’t just acid trips… it was a way to free themselves from the uptight 1950s with the frightened attitudes of the cold war and a possible threat of nuclear war, communists and space aliens… which were less feared than communists.

The beat generation of the 1950s was too quiet. Bongos, MAD Magazine, Kerouac and Ginsberg were too fringe at the time to threaten the American way of life. Max and his contemporaries were actually changing things. But the generation of freedom and “marching to one’s own drummer� also had a certain hipness that was an insistence of “being in.� If you weren’t “with it� you were a “square.� Fashions and causes change but people will always be people. With Max’s upbringing and art being his world of creativity and peace, I suspect it insulated him against growing up at a time when non-creatives committed unspeakable acts against humanity. His art was everything – his number one reason for being.

When I saw that Peter would be at the Ober Anderson Gallery in Clayton, Missouri, I tried to arrange a meeting so I could ask a few questions for this article. My biggest quandary was what questions does one pose to an iconic talent whose work spans decades? The usual questions have been asked and answered dozens of times. I wanted to find answers to questions that would be relevant to what creatives face today. I wanted gems from the master that would change lives and thinking.

I had expected a few minutes of Peter’s time in the gallery but was delighted when he suggested we sit at a sidewalk café to chat.  I assured him I would only ask two or three questions, as I knew he was busy. “Ask four or five or more� he replied, with a genuine smile.

Mr. Max was a pioneer of many things. Aside from his art style, often referred to as “cosmic art,� he also was the first to experiment with licensing and mass production. I actually had some of his Mead book covers, which were ripped from my books by a teacher who screamed at me about “filthy hippie, drug-addled art not belonging in a clean, wholesome American school.�

If you consider the generation who fought the status quo, the establishment and old mainstream thinking, Max’s foray into licensing his work may have seemed too commercial for the current art movement at that time. Was Max “selling out� to the establishment or using consumerism to spread the message of his art? His art adorned clocks for General Electric, school book covers for Mead, airplanes, postage stamps, work for six American presidents, among too many projects of shear importance to mention in just one article.

I was curious about what brought him into licensing his work. Not even Norman Rockwell, who was America’s darling artist from the 1940s through the 1980s, had done it before. Did Max see potential in consumerism or was it just an extension of his art and the tools with which he experimented?

When I asked about his entry into licensing, Mr. Max smiled and leaned forward. “It was really great… historic… sensational… such a rush from every direction toward who I was and what I did. It was hard for me to even believe it. I just somehow captured the mood the way the Beatles captured the music mood of the late sixties and early seventies, I captured the visual.�

“Licensing is where you license your name to be reproduced commercially but to the public, they just see the objects out there… the Peter Max objects and they just loved it. How else were they to get Peter Max things? The posters weren’t enough. I sold a million posters at least, if not two million. Then there were Peter Max blue jeans and Peter Max shirts and I had 72 licensing deals. After about two-and-a-half years, I realized that the only other two people doing licensing were Dior and some other designer in Europe. I decided I didn’t want to be that company anymore and gave up a two million dollar business. I did two million dollars gross in 1970 dollars. You can imagine. I gave it up and then I missed it a lot. It was an exciting period for me and then, in the late eighties, I did it again but this time with only 35 licenses and gave it up again. Today, every major artist who gets ten to twelve million per piece licenses, when asked why they are doing this, they say, ‘isn’t that how Peter Max started?’ So, it’s a way to distribute your work and to getting your work out there. People loved it, so I gave them what they wanted. It was a lot of fun for me, so I may do it again, very soon.”

I had to ask if his contemporaries resented his work for “the establishment.�

“No, no! It was a huge, big, beautiful community, the love generation. We were all together generating the feeling of love, peace, harmony and togetherness. It was not a competitive thing; it was unity… in unity is strength.�

He also mentioned his work in the spiritual community. Mr. Max, it turns out, was the force behind the Satchidananda Ashram, affectionately known as “Yogaville,� in Buckingham, Virginia. If you are in the area, make time for a visit and mention his name.

Someone from the gallery rushed out to inform Peter that he was needed in the gallery right away but he politely replied that he would be there once he was done with my interview. The graciousness and consideration overwhelmed me! I did, as I had promised, keep the number of questions down to three. With only one question left, I asked what advice he had for designers to help their creative thought. What did he think about the belief that creatives had to have a certain “style� for which they are known?

“The advice I always give young creatives, “ he started, “go to a print shop where there’s a lot of random sheets of paper they throw away and you can get forty pounds of paper they don’t need for twenty or thirty dollars and draw all day long. Draw nonsense. Just let the hand and wrist go and draw anything. Circles, squares… if a drawing comes out it comes out, if not then go on to the next piece. So just draw, draw and draw and don’t worry what comes out. Let the pen and the wrist get used to the movement. You should become an expert in moving the wrist. You get better with repetition. Not every drawing has to be a good drawing. Every sheet should be a bad drawing, just move the pen around. Eventually the great drawings will come.�

Picking up an inspiring quote from Max’s Twitter account (@Peter_Max), “when I approach a canvas, the only thing I anticipate is being… surprised!�

How Does This Translate to THIS Generation?

It was never success or money Max was after – it was always about the art. Sure, he made millions and will continue to make money but if you hear his words, it falls behind his love for creativity. As with his words on drawing, until “it comes,� keep loving your creative projects and the money will come. If not, at least you’ll love what you’re doing. I have to take credit for that afterthought.

Look for opportunity in technology and marketing. Consumerism was a bit more innocent in the 1960s, if “innocent� can be used as a descriptor, but as rampant as consumerism is, why not use it? With digital technology evolving every day, there are always avenues open for creativity. Get inspired by Max’s words and life!

Yes, we may not want to actually draw on paper, but Peter is not the only great artist to encourage others to draw every day. Picasso was also quoted as saying one should draw every day. No matter what tool you use to create, practice makes perfect and mistakes, or “bad drawings,� as Max refers to it, hold lessons that lead us to become better at creating great pieces, designs, websites, etc.

It’s hard, if not impossible, to fathom such thoughts as “unity� and “harmony� in our generation as we rebel against our parents of the love generation and live behind the “me first� generation of entitlement. There are great lessons in Peter Max’s words, as well as his career.

If you check the Peter Max website you’ll find, among other words of wisdom that inspire, a schedule of his exhibits and personal appearances. I highly suggest you go to one and meet the man. You will find a gracious, kind and humble man who will be happy to shake your hand and take a few moments to chat with you. You will come away from it feeling better about being a part of the creative community and inspired about starting a new day with a new outlook.

Check out his book, “The Art of Peter Max� (available signed, too!)

Images ©Peter Max

Author’s Note: In all the articles I’ve written. In all the designer profiles I’ve written and will write, this article… this testament to Paul Rand is the most worthy. If I had to write one last piece before I died, none would be so fitting or so satisfying as a spotlight on Mr. Rand. He exemplifies the best any creative could ever be. He is a symbol of struggle and strength. He is creative play and joy and power with humility. Oh, if I could only be half the creative he was.

Paul Rand (August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) lived a lie when he was young. Born Peretz Rosenbaum, in Brooklyn, New York, he was Orthodox Jewish. As Orthodox law forbids the creation of graven images that can be worshiped as idols, he must have felt a yearning and creative turmoil that ate away at him… and strengthened his resolve and character.

Growing up in America at that time and with his strict upbringing, he hadn’t much of a chance to follow his creative urge. With virtually no avenues for him to follow, he found creative outlets where he could – painting signs for his father’s store and doing work for his schools special events. A career in art was certainly not viewed as one that could support a family and not one a Jewish family, especially an Orthodox one in post World War l America would encourage. Considering the rampant anti-Semitism of the time, such careers were unheard of.

Art School Lives Inside Us

Peretz attended a High School chosen by his father while taking night classes at the Pratt Institute, though neither of these schools offered him much stimulation. Despite studying at Pratt and other institutions in the New York area, including Parsons School of Design and the Art Students League, he was more or less self-taught as a designer, learning about the works of great European designers from magazines such as Gebrauchsgraphik.

It could not have been easy for Rand to afford those magazines, and they were, in all probability, not welcomed in his family home. One has the vision of young Rand hiding in the bathroom at night, pouring over the pages of the magazine and hiding it under his mattress during the day.

Creatives today come from all religious backgrounds. We have found more tolerance for each other yet we all share the same tortured youth of being creative. Our family and others around us still continue to make us question our inner dreams of making a living doing what we love and are driven to do. Imagining what Rand faced and overcame, many of us realize how easy we have it… only having the internet to skim for creative inspiration, in the darkened corners of our bedrooms while our parents sleep.

While in his studies, Rand worked a part-time position creating stock images for a syndicate that supplied graphics to various newspapers and magazines, which allowed him to amass a large portfolio, influenced by European designers and the German advertising style Sachplakat (ornamental poster) as well as the works of Gustav Jensen. To further his career he felt he had to the hide his Jewish identity, easily spotted by his name. Shortening his name to “Paul� and taking “Rand� from an uncle to form his new surname. Morris Wyszogrod, a friend and associate of Rand, noted that, “he figured that ‘Paul Rand,’ four letters here, four letters there, would create a nice symbol. So he became Paul Rand.�

Rand Creates His Brand

Peter Behrens notes the importance of the new title: “Rand’s new persona, which served as the brand name for his many accomplishments, was the first corporate identity he created, and it may also eventually prove to be the most enduring.�

In his early twenties he was producing work that began to garner international acclaim, notably his designs on the covers of Direction magazine, which Rand produced for no fee in exchange for full artistic freedom. Among the accolades Rand received were those of Moholy-Nagy:

“Among these young Americans it seems to be that Paul Rand is one of the best and most capable. […] He is an idealist and a realist, using the language of the poet and business man. He thinks in terms of need and function. He is able to analyze his problems but his fantasy is boundless.�

One has to wonder what would have been said of Peretz Rosenbaum — would talent overshadow the racism of that time? Perceptions of the person and not the work still, unfortunately, exist.

Making Opportunities

While all of us who write on the industry warn about shying away from doing free work, Rand found an avenue in his pro bono efforts. Perhaps it was just the time, but if one were to find such an avenue today, willing to give total creative freedom, there are many working professionals who would jump right in. Creative freedom is too rare these days to pass up. Not to mention that most pro bono work seems to be just as restrictive and subject to “design-by-committee� as does any paying assignment.

His work for Direction caught the right people’s eyes. Success led to other successes. After being hired to design the page layout for an Apparel Arts magazine anniversary issue, an offer to take over as art director for the Esquire-Coronet magazines came his way. Initially, Rand refused this offer, claiming that he was not yet at the level the job required, but a year later he decided to accept it, taking over responsibility for Esquire’s fashion pages at the young age of twenty-three.

Twenty-three! The time of the 1930s aside, in what universe would a twenty-three year-old be given such power for a publication that even back then had huge clout in the media? Rand was experimenting with the introduction of themes normally found in fine arts, into his graphic work, further advancing his career and forming new ways of looking at graphic design, more as art than just a way to fill a page. Layout, as it was termed, was becoming art.

Rand was probably best known, at least among designers, for his iconic logos (back to the breaking of his childhood upbringing of false idols) for IBM, Westinghouse, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and the United Parcel Service (UPS). Even children enjoyed his work and, as adults, who doesn’t feel fond memories for his fun Colorforms logo?

Rand not only changed how design was executed and respected – he also changed the way businesses saw the need for design and branding. According to graphic designer, Louis Danziger: “He almost single-handedly convinced businesses that design was an effective tool. [. . .] Anyone designing in the 1950s and 1960s owed much to Rand, who largely made it possible for us to work. He more than anyone else made the profession reputable. We went from being commercial artists to being graphic designers largely on his merits.�

One of Rand’s defining corporate identities, if one has to pick just one, was his IBM logo in 1956, which as designer Mark Favermann professes, “was not just an identity but a basic design philosophy that permeated corporate consciousness and public awareness.� The logo was modified by Rand in 1960, and the striped logo in 1972. Rand also designed packaging and marketing materials for IBM from the early 1970s until the early 1980s. It was Rand’s ability to sell the importance of the corporate brand and how it needed to evolve and grow with the corporation itself that has given us the … permission to see that brands are not held still in time. Growth, both as a designer and with design was Rand’s gift to us… and the world!

His logos are brilliant in the simplicity and power they exude. Rand was quick to point out that, “ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting.� Looking at the unchanged ABC logo, now fifty years old (created in 1962), it epitomizes that ideal of minimalism, while giving an undisputed truth to Rand’s point that a logo “cannot survive unless it is designed with the utmost simplicity and restraint.�

Among the ideas Rand pushed in his book, Thoughts on Design, was the practice of creating graphics capable of retaining their recognizable quality even after being blurred or mutilated, a test Rand routinely performed on his corporate identities.

As with all of those who sought to change the status quo or think differently, Rand had his detractors and they were more than willing to flail him publicly with such labels as, “reactionary and hostile to new ideas about design.� Though some of us believe the title “reactionary� is a must to stretch one as a creative designer, Rand was also labeled, “an enemy of mediocrity, a radical modernist.�

As designers, don’t we strive for the fabulous? Don’t we revel in what is Earth-shattering? There are many designers we idolize but, in my opinion, few who truly deserve it. Paul Rand was no flashy egotist. It wasn’t hype or a good public relations geek working in a corner of a studio, being paid to send a thousand press releases out on one design job, hoping someone will notice. Rand gained popularity and changed our industry by struggling against everything he knew and by which he was bound. He gambled and won; and his prize is also ours while we sit comfortably behind our computers. He made us all stars and our work worthy of doing. For that, he deserves the title, as opposed to it as his religious upbringing might be, of design God… or at least our design angel!

(rb)

Most people think of a yogurt brand when they hear, “Swiss style.� As designers, we may be a bit more familiar with the Swiss school of design. Some call it the evolution of modern design. Others may think of it as just a step to where design style is now. Both may be correct.

Josef Müller-Brockmann (May 9^th, 1914 – August 30^th, 1996) is considered one of the key players in the Swiss School of international Style. When one considers the time of his career, which included the Second World War, the Cold War and the growing influence of a Europe on the mend from destruction and fear, he certainly influenced not only a design style that influenced designers on a global scale. It was a time of rebirth for many nations that lay in ruins, rebuilding and rethinking centuries of tradition that were forced to change due to the brutality of war and cruelty.

Müller-Brockmann was more than just a man who sought to form what is now labeled the Swiss School; Constructivism, De Still, Suprematism and the Bauhaus, all of which pushed his designs in a new direction that opened doors for creative expressions in graphic design, influenced him. Among his peers he is probably the most easily recognized when looking at that period.

Perhaps his most recognized work was done for the Zurich Town Hall as poster advertisements for its theater productions. The work is graphic, rather than illustrative. Some critics say these posters created a mathematical harmony, which reflected the harmony of music. If one studies posters before that time, they would probably all agree that these are a bold and different way to play to visual messages dealing with music. Who would think of such a graphic? Who would dare execute such work at that time? If you look at the jazz and fusion albums in America at the time, you can see Müller-Brockmann’s influence.

The Grid System: Constrictive Or Freeing?

His design sense of the 1950s aimed to create posters that communicated with the masses. This was no small feat as the pieces had to communicate across a language barrier, with English, French, German and Italian speaking populations in Switzerland alone. It was the harmony and simplicity of these pieces that influenced a post-war world that had lost the sense of central nationalism and gained a lesson in the need for globalization. Müller-Brockmann was soon 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.

The grid was the prioritization and arrangement of typographic and pictorial elements with the meaningful use of color, set into a semblance of order, based on left-to-right, top-to-bottom. According to Wikipedia, the grid system is, “a two-dimensional structure made up of a series of intersecting vertical and horizontal axes used to structure content. The grid serves as an armature on which a designer can organize text and images in a rational, easy to absorb manner.�

Despite that dry description, the page does go on to add, “After World War II, a number of graphic designers, including Max Bill, Emil Ruder, and Josef Müller-Brockmann, influenced by the modernist ideas of Jan Tschichold’s Die neue Typographie (The New Typography), began to question the relevance of the conventional page layout of the time. They began to devise a flexible system able to help designers achieve coherency in organizing the page. The result was the modern typographic grid that became associated with the International Typographic Style. The seminal work on the subject, Grid systems in graphic design by Müller-Brockmann, helped propagate the use of the grid, first in Europe, and later in North America.â€�

In an interview with Eye Magazine in the winter of 1995 (a year before his death), Müller-Brockmann spoke about what order meant to him:

“Order was always wishful thinking for me. For 60 years I have produced disorder in files, correspondence and books. In my work, however, I have always aspired to a distinct arrangement of typographic and pictorial elements, the clear identification of priorities. The formal organization of the surface by means of the grid, a knowledge of the rules that govern legibility (line length, word and letter spacing and so on) and the meaningful use of color are among the tools a designer must master in order to complete his or her task in a rational and economic manner.�

The KISS Method (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

Müller-Brockmann is recognized for his simple designs and his clean use of typography, notably Akzidenz-Grotesk, shapes and colors, which inspires many graphic designers in the 21st century. As with the French posters in the 1890s, Müller-Brockmann and his peers also attempted to attract customers and sell products with bold, simplicity. The posters that served to attract an audience to events, especially music events and museum exhibitions embraced the abstract geometrical shapes the style is noted for; but it is the public service announcement posters from this time period that have been more noted than in many other periods of design. The simple, clean and graphic messages were, as with the music event posters, able to be understood by viewers with different languages.

Whether you deal with print or digital design, the lesson of Müller-Brockmann is for simplicity being more powerful than a mashup of too many elements. In a time of globalization with the web, it’s imperative that the message be simple and instantly understood by those with different languages and cultures. As with his poster designs, who could not get the message, seeing a speeding vehicle careening towards a small child?

Müller-Brockmann 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 insight for graphic designers wishing to learn more about the profession and creative thought. 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.

“I am interested in graphic design as art,” Ed Fella says. “This is a kind of art practice that uses forms that come out of graphic design, decorative illustration, and lettering, all mixed together-forms that come out of Twentieth Century art, out of Miró and Picasso — all of it has a genealogy and a certain look — in the same way that artists today use comic books and graphic novels. I was an illustrator, so you see endless styles popping in and out of the books. The drawings are an unconscious discharge of all the styles and forms that I used as a commercial artist for 30 years — that was my profession — I did it every single day. So, my unconscious has all this stuff in it, and now, because I don’t have to make meaning anymore, I can just use the techniques, like a machine that has long ago stopped making widgets, but the machine is still running. I’m still making stuff. I love the craft of it — of carefully making some little thing.”

Ed Fella: A Lesson In Being Truly Creative

Many articles and interviews have been done with Ed Fella. It wouldn’t do him justice to do another… at least not the same way others have done it. Mr. Fella is different, and not in a good way… or bad way. It depends on how you view design. A base of commercial art led him to create design that is the very destruction of design. It broke every rule and he knew it.

The bad boy in me loves him for that because he chose to do it and keeps on doing it. Best of all, people in design worship him for it. My only sadness lay with his breaking the rules BECOMING the rules. Someone like Fella sets the high bar and eventually, it becomes the standard. Society, and certainly design, is too weird at times and eventually weirdness becomes the mundane.

But the tribute to Fella is that he did it first and for many years while other designers failed to “get it.� The greatest thing that can be said is that he thumbed his nose at the rules and kept doing it until it was accepted and even touted as greatness by his detractors. Bastards!

CalArts, where Mr. Fella teaches, lists his bio as:

“Edward Fella is an artist and graphic designer whose work has had an important influence on contemporary typography here and in Europe. He practiced professionally as a commercial artist in Detroit for 30 years before receiving a master’s degree in Design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1987. He has since devoted his time to teaching and his own unique self-published work has appeared in many design publications and anthologies. In 1997 he received the Chrysler Award and in 1999 an honorary doctorate from CCS in Detroit. In 2007 he was recognized with a medal from AIGA. His work is in the National Design Museum and MOMA in New York. A recent monograph of his work, Letters on America, documents some of his extensive practice.”

I hope he laughs and prints that out to wipe himself with after each bowel movement he takes. Moreover, I hope those who believe hiring “young and cheap� choke on their own words when they say older designers have nothing to add to design. Mr. Fella was old and talented and set the tone many years ago that young and cheap designers now mimic. Take THAT Madison Ave!

Idiosyncratic And Juxtaposing.

Just looking at his work, one would think that he’s a lunatic. He forces contradiction yet still plays to the grid. Not because it’s there but because it serves his purpose to help pull the eye all over the place and still make pleasing, readable design. There is chaos and balance, existing side-by-side like identical Siamese twins – one good and the other evil.

His hand drawn type and inkblot icons are now Emigré font sets. Personally, I think it an insult to the man who hand rendered his own type to contradict the mainstream fonts of the time. Still, no innovation goes un-copied. No movement of rebellion is long lived as it often becomes commonplace with familiarity. The design world is always changing and eventually, Ed’s rebellion became the commerciality of later years.

It is not the lines or placement or type usage of Ed’s that designers should admire and mimic – it’s the strength of conviction, the exploration, the dedication and the utter balls the size of church bells.

When Crazy Becomes The Norm.

Fella is quoted as saying, “anything can be made in anything� and “everything is possible.�

That leaves little to no limitations in the creative process and Fella certainly saw no limitations in his work. His work is a forced contradiction and he revels in it. If red is the color a designer would use for a Valentine, Fella would no doubt use black or yellow. Considering Fella’s decades of work under strict control of both an ad agency and clients, someone of his creative talent… and needs, had a driving urge for a freer outlet or risk spontaneous combustion.

One of Fella’s early sketchbooks contains some telling clippings. One is an advice column in which a young creative sadly wrote that he is depressed by numerous rejections and being told his work is, not “with it.�

The columnist answered with a quote from Orson Wells. “I passionately hate the idea of being ‘with it.’ A true artist is always out of step with his time. He has to be.�

Obviously that struck a cord with Fella. Either it inspired him or just legitimized his entrenched belief in his own design sensibilities. Another clipping within his sketchbook was a quote from Marcel Duchamp. “I force myself into contradiction to avoid following my own taste.�

It was the strict guidelines of corporate design that forced Fella into his greatness and, I suspect, happiest place in his design career. He claimed to flourish with the erratic quality of cheap typesetting (before the years of the PC) and “quickie� offset printing. The arts community quickly grew to know and admire his work and because of the volunteer and low pay jobs associated with that community, he was able to control his own design decisions. By making grand images that were jumbles and unidentifiable, Fella’s work invited closer inspection of individual elements within the entire work.

Fella referred to his work as stylistically “getting it wrong.� His work is raw and obsessive. It has power and spontaneity. Born from the knowledge of layout, typography, design and theory, he seems to have ended up getting it very, very right.

(all images © Ed Fella)

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