dead designers

///// Max Huber was born in Switzerland in 1919. At the age of 17 Huber registered at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts. Huber studied the experiments of Bauhaus-designers such as Tschichold as well as European abstract artists and russian constructivists. His design spans all over Europe, and his most iconic work was done in an avant-garde environment. He is known for recognizable use of both type and color. ///// Josef Müller-Brockmann, (May 9, 1914 – August 30, 1996), was a Swiss graphic designer and teacher. He studied architecture, design and history of art. In 1936 he opened a studio specializing in graphic design, exhibition design, and photography. He started to produce concert posters in 1951. In 1958 he became a founding editor of New Graphic Design. In 1966 he was appointed European design consultant to IBM. ///// Jan Tschichold was born on April 2nd, 1902 in Leipzig Germany. He was a typographer, book designer, teacher, and writer. His father was a sign painter, so he was exposed to typography at an early age. He chose alternative methods of creating letterforms compared to most of the typographers of his time. He even created an alphabet that fixed inconsistencies in the German language. His techniques were so controversial that Nazi’s seized much of his work. He died August 11th, 1974 in Locarno, Switzerland. ///// Max Bill was an architect, visual artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer, and graphic designer. He was born December 22nd, 1908 in Switzerland. He is known for his simple, yet iconic watch designs. During the 1980s he experimented with creating giant sculptures. At the same time, he traveled all around Europe to organize showings of his own works. ///// Emil Ruder was a typographer and graphic designer who was born in Switzerland in 1914. Ruder helped form the Basel School of Design and establish the style of design known as Swiss Design. His work portrayed a heavy emphasis on sans-serif typefaces and is both clear and concise. His use of grids in design has influenced the development of most web design. He taught that typography's purpose was to communicate ideas through writing.

living designers

///JESSICA HISCHE/// Jessica Hische is an Illustrator and a Typographer and Designer based out of Brooklyn. She graduated in 2006 with adegree in Graphic and Interactive Design from Tyler School of Art (Temple University). She credits herself as a procrastiworker who always pumps out her painting and lettering projects right on time. Jessica’s clients includes Wes Anderson, Tiffany & Co., The New York Times, Penguin Books, Target, Leo Burnett, American Express, and Wired Magazine.

///WOLFGANG WEINGART/// Wolfgang Weingart was a teacher and Design Philosopher. He is credited as "the father" of New Wave or Swiss Punk typography. He taught Typography that was very influential in the 1990's. He believes that what he taught was Swiss Typography, but the work that came from his students pushed the boundaries of traditional swiss Typography.

///STEFAN SAGMEISTER/// Born in Bregenz, Austria in 1962, Sagmeister began his unorthodox career at age 15 writing for Alphorn, a small, left-wing magazine, but quickly realized that working on the layout was more enjoyable than writing articles. Sagmeister, whose motto was “Style=Fart,” replaced style with attitude. His designs are rooted in disorienting images and self-defining aphorisms. With apparent ease, Sagmeister morphs—as tricksters are wont to do—taking on various skins, from graphic designer to conceptual typographer to performance artist. When the mood strikes, he returns to being a designer, and a completely new cycle of transformation commences.

///WIM CROUWEL/// Born in 1928, Wim Crouwel is a remarkable and inspiring figure with an inventive spirit and vision, vigorous and always distinguished. Hendrik "Wim" Crouwel is a Graphic Designer, and Typographer. He studied fine arts in the Netherlands and Typography in Amsterdam. Crouwel's graphic work is especially well known for the use of Grid-based layouts and typography that is rooted in the International Typographic Style.

///ERIK SPIEKERMANN/// Erik Spiekermann born in 1947 is a German typographer and designer. He is a professor at the University of the Arts BremenIn 1989 he and his wife, Joan Spiekermann, started FontShop, the first mail-order distributor for digital fonts. FontShop International followed and now publishes theFontFont range of typefaces. MetaDesign combined clean, teutonic-looking information design and complex corporate design systems for clients like BVG (Berlin Transit), Düsseldorf Airport, Audi, Volkswagen and Heidelberg Printing, amongst others.

univers

Univers is a San Serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1954. Different weights and variations within this type family are designated by the use of numbers rather than names, a system Frutiger adopted for other type designs as well. With Kachs teachings in mind, Frutiger began to envision a large family with multiple widths and weights that maintained a unified pattern. However, the actual typeface names within Univers family include both number and letter suffixes. The Univers grid is a chart that documents the different variations of the font based on stroke weight and kerning, creating organization for the font. It also tells the amount the type is condensed or extended. Univers is featured mostly in the Swiss Style of graphic design. Univers is the product of modern times and post war reconstructions and the need for a typeface without decorations. The Univers family consists of various faces of thin, regular, bold, condesed, extended, and italics.

adrian frutiger

Adrian Frutiger is a typeface designer born in 1928. He is known to have influenced the direction of digital typography in the second half of the 20th century. At a young age he developed an interest in sculpture, but he was advised to study print instead. He studied type and graphics from 1949 to 1951 at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts under the supervision of Alfred Willman and Walter Kach. Frutiger claimed the Univers typeface was the outcome of Kach's teachings. Frutiger wrote a book on visual communication, typeface design, typography, graphics, advertisement, print production and architecture/signage - as well as the fields of type research and design at high schools and universities. The large selection of typefaces on personal computers also makes Adrian Frutiger's accomplishments in type available to a wider audience. He had such an impact on design by creating typefaces such as Univers and Frutiger. He had many disagreements with direction of typeface design but overall became one of the most profound designers of his time with creations of many other typefaces such as Egyptienne, Serifa, OCR-B, Linotype , Meridien, and Avenir.