Piet Zwart

28 May 1885 –24 September 1977
Zwart was a Dutch Typographer, Photographer and Industrial Designer.

Studied: School of applied arts in Amsterdam 1902-1907

Like many, he started his career off as an Architect and worked for Jan Wils and Berlage

Important works:
During WWI, Zwart worked on furniture, interior and fabric design


Breakfastset, for H.P. Berlage, pressed glass (1923-24)


Was influenced by Jan Wills, who was a member of the De Stijl group and to whom he worked as  a draftsman. This was when he began to become interested in graphic design and photography.

 Letterhead for Jan Wills (1921)

As a Typographer he was well known for breaking down the rules of traditional photography

LAGA Rubber Flooring, Folder for Vickers house (1923)

Left - Vierkant Plat Rond, advertising for NKF 1926

 Right - Hot Spots, advertising for NKF (1926)

 Sien via Scheveningen Radio, 2 designs for an advertisement with photogram (1929)

Piet Zwart died at the age of 92 in 1977. The Piet Zwart Institute of the William de Kooning Academy Rotterdam - the same art school of which he was a professor in the 1920s - is named after him.

For more information on Piet Zwart, Visit http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Piet-Zwart/

Paul Rand

August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996

Studied: Rand was educated at the Pratt Institute (1929–1932),Parsons the New School of Design (1932–33), and the Art Students League (1933–1934)

Taught: Design at Yale University

Rand was considered one of the originators of the Swiss Style of graphic design.

Important Works:
Logo Designs:

IBM

UPS

Steve Jobs' NeXT

ABC

Other Important Works:

Miscellany cover for Design Quarterly


Direction, December 1940 cover.

Akzidenz Grotesk

Released by the H. Berthold AD type foundry in 1898

Akzidenz Grotesk was the first Sans Serif typefaces to be widely used. It has been said to be derived from Didot as it has similar font metrics when the serifs are removed.

Variations:
Akzidenz Grotesk Book
Akzidenz Grotesk Book Rounded
Akzidenz Grotesk Schoolbook
Akzidenz Grotesk Oldface
Akzidenz Grotesk Next

Used as a model for:
Helvetica (Neue Haas Grotesk) 1957 - Max Miedinger
Univers 1957 - Adrian Frutiger
Folio 1957 - Bauer and Baums


Character Comparisons

Josef Muller-Brockmann

9th May 1914 - 30th August 1996

Swiss Graphic Designer

Studied: Architecture, Design and History of Art at the University of Zurich and the Kunstgewerbeschule



Published works:
The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems
Grid Systems in Graphic Design
History of the Poster and A History of Visual Communication


Important Works:

Concert Posters for the Tonhalle in Zurich from 1951


European design consultant to IBM 1966

Max Bill

 
 22/12/1908 - 9/12/1994

Max Bill was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, graphic designer and industrial designer.

Studied: Bauhaus - under Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer
Max Bill was a primary member of the Allianz design group and was a professor at the school of design in Zurich.

Max Bill was considered the single most decisive influence on Swiss design in the 1950's. His studies conducted at the Bauhaus in the early days of Modernism gave him a special influence over design in the 1950's.

Important Works:



Junghans Kitchen Clock 1950s


Ulmer Hocker 1954


Endlose Treppe (1991)

Jan Tschichold

 
1902, Germany

Studied: The son of a sign-writer, was trained in calligraphy
(This set him apart from other designers of the time which had been trained in the areas of Architecture or the fine arts and moved into Graphic design and Typography afterward)

Life: Tschichold and his wife were arrested for being "cultural Bolshevists" under Hitler's rule after Soviet posters were found in their flat. Somehow, three weeks later a policeman found them tickets to Switzerland and they were able to escape.

Important Works:

Sabon typeface 1967


Penguin Books redesign of paperbacks 1947-1949

Tschichold became a firm believer in Modernism after a visit to the Weimar Bauhaus exhibition in Germany 1923. He published a book entitled Die Neue Typography in which he advertised modernist principals. Later in his career, he discredited this book as being to extreme.


Jan Tschichold died on the 11th of August 1974 in Switzerland.

Wim Crouwell

Wim Crouwell (1928)
Dutch Graphic designer and typographer

Studied: Fine Arts at Academie Minerva in Groningen

One of the founders of the design studio Total Design (Currently named Total Identity)

Important works:


New Alphabet Typeface 1976


Gridink Typeface 1974




Stedelijk Museum c1970

Posters

Here's just a collection of a few posters I've found in the last couple of months.
Poster One: Joanna Górska and Jerzy Skakun from design studio Homework in Warsaw
Poster Two: Milton Glaser 1961-1962
Poster Three: Wim Crouwell 1959

Trip to Torquay...

I went to torquay on the weekend, a small coastal town where I grew up.
You never realise how bland, but really hilarious, small towns can be....

If you can't see - the truck says "I couldn't believe that was church, amazing... very cool!"



Hilarious.