Discussion Point 2 - Weingart/Muller-Brockmann

In our contemporary society, we communicate to one another visually in so many different ways through a wide range of mediums, both digitally and in print.

Among these various forms of visual communication, there are certain contexts in which typographic conventions should be adhered to but there are also situations where they should be taken with a grain of salt or can even be ignored.

In contexts where the purpose of the work is to communicate information, elements such as grids, general convention like the rule of thirds generally and even typefaces and their forms themselves help to communicate this information effectively and efficiently. However, these same elements also influence and bring inspiration for more abstract and expressive publication works. 

Josef Müller-Brockmann was born in Rapperswil, Switzerland in 1914 and studied architecture, design and history of art at the University of Zurich and at the city’s Kunstgewerbeschule.

he was established as the leading practitioner and theorist of Swiss Style, which sought a universal graphic expression through a grid-based design purged of extraneous illustration and subjective feeling.

He found the grid in everything and found more depth in the grid. To him it was more than just an organisational system. His designs aligned with mathematics and he felt that there is a right way of doing this. He works with the grid in his own way and believes that it is much like working with the universal truth. The grid in a way is perspective; it is telling you what to do.

Wolfgang Weingart is an internationally acclaimed Swiss graphic designer and typographer. He was perhaps most famously known for his “Swiss Punk” typographic style.

Weingart’s experimental compositions have clearly deviated from traditional typographic conventions. He pushed the limits of traditional graphic conventions and guidelines and blurred the line between grunge and minimalism. He also took a very conceptual and abstract approach to all his typographic and graphic design work:

“In addition to using the typesetter's standard letters and symbols as individual elements, I was searching for the means to emphasise the planar areas of a composition; in other words, to consider text blocks as shapes…”

Weingart had some interesting ideas on typographic conventions; acknowledging their significance and then pushing them or stepping just beyond them to create fresh and innovative pieces. It is evident that his work still operates within or influenced by a grid system.

“In order the break down such rigid concepts, it was helpful to have a practical knowledge of typesetting…

“To me, visual rules in typography were not inviolable. My challenge was to renew a fascination with basic design relationships through the medium of typography: slant, weight, size, the character or various types, the limits of readability, and most interestingly, the effects of letterspacing.”

I believe that with the multitude of information that is being communicated to us everyday all the time, typographic conventions bear quite a lot of significance and should be considered within all publishing contexts. These conventions provide mere guidelines to design within but as we all work towards creating something unique, innovative and timeless, we are constantly making rules only to be inspired by them and then break them, creating new ones to break again.