Modernism

1918 - 1950

Modernism is more a way of thinking than a style. Modernists believed that the design of an object should be based purely on its purpose, that 'form follows function'.

Modernism is rational and stuctural, echoing the ideas of the Structuralists.

Josef Muller Brockman (1914-1996) loved grids! He believed there was a right way of designing and a wrong way. He worked in a very mathematical, and scientific way, following the pattern and the mathematical laws. He saw grids as both an underlying ordering system and contexualy beautiful too. Brockmans book, The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems, gave a new direction to the how graphic design was taught. He explored how grids could be used in a wide range of ways. Many designers within the Swiss movement used and developed grid structures.

Otto Neurath (THINKER) and Gerd Arntz (MAKER) were the developers of the Isotype, the international pictorial language. They designed the idea that 'chains' of singles give meaning.

Beatrice Warde believed the rule of typography is to Hold information. She compared typography to a 'Crystal Goblet"- if you pour wine into it, the purest crystal shows the wine at its best= Clarity
She believed that designers must work in an unobtrusive way, that by bringing other meanings to their work 'muddies the water'.....

Josef Muller Brockman

Herbert Bayer, Fortune

Alexei Brodovitch