History of Graphic Design

- The Basel School
- Point, Line, and Plane
- Harmony of opposing forces
- Josef Muller Brockman
- Der Film poster
- Swiss Movement
- “Good design is good business.”
- Brandbury Thompson
- Chermayeff and Geisman Associates: abstract form unto itself, free from alphabetic, pictographic, figurative connotations.
- Vignelli Associates
- Media revolution, “The Society of the Spectacle”
- Wolf’s vision
- Typography unified with photography by locking text or display tightly with image.
- George Lois: new advertising
- Photo-typography
- “New flexibility”
- “Type talks”


International style flourished during the 60’s in the two Swiss cities: Zurich and Basel. The Basel School of Design was laboratory of the international style, graduates spread the style to educational institutions around the world. Emil Ruder, Armin Hoffmann, and Josef Muller Brockman were associated with the school and its education, they all published books to establish their design philosophies. Josef Muller Brockman, treated image as objective symbol, gaining impact through scale and camera angle, created a visual counterpart to the structural harmony of music.
The Swiss Movement had a big impact on American Graphic Design and the emerging field of corporate graphics. Critics of Swiss design claim it suppressed the role of content and the “voice” of designers producing a rigid and severe style that had inflexibility at and sameness of form.
Paul Rand, understood value of invented forms for both symbolic and communicative ends, through skillful analysis of the context. Branding was seen as a major way to shape a reputation for quality and reliability. Along with Saul Bass, Paul Rand helped define a new American Graphic design that turned away from European sources. Form and essence of a message and playful symbolism.
Brandbury Thompson, expanded the range of design possibilities throught a thorough knowledge of printing and typesetting and an adventurous experimental spirit.
Standards for format sizes, typography, grid systems, paper specifications, and colors realized tremendous economics in materials and time.
George Lois was a advertising genius, his concepts were dominated and text and images became completely interdependent. The role of art director was expanded into editorial deliberations. The new advertising: visual statements used simple images, talked intelligently to there audience, focus on the benefits of a product.
1940-1960, social conventions and standard design thinking was challenged as new conceptual approaches emerged from advertising and the advent of photo-typography.