Jan Tschichold believed that design was meant to focus on clarity. He mentions how “old typography” aka the designs of the past such as the Renaissance focused more on elaborate beauty of the design itself as opposed to the focus being on what the text was trying to communicate. Tschichold believed that one should design with “form being created out of function”; the form of the design must come from what is needed for the content to be communicated as clearly as possible. Clarity triumphs ambiguity. Everything that is not absolutely essential to communicate the content is to be removed.

Karl Gerstner believed design could be approached from an entirely scientific/mathematical approach. He believed that just like science, possibilities could not be delimited absolutely and that there was always a group of solutions that worked best to solve the problem. In this case, it was design problems. Similar to Tschichold,  Gerstner believes that design should be thought out. Using his grid, the elements of a design could be simplified and reduced to only the bare bones of the necessary design elements. 

Josef Müller-Brockmann also believed in a very mathematical way of thinking like Gerstner (another who worked and focused on grids as guides) and emphasized a focus on the simple and objective like Tschichold. He also however believed that design had a level of social responsibility on the creators part. He believes that the use of directness and systematicness in design is “vital” for sociopolitical life. The focus of design, according to Müller, was to cultivate objectivity, rationalize the production process, and “penetrate to the essentials”.

I believe all 3 designers would agree on these points: Less is more. Design should be broken down to only the elements that are absolutely necessary to communicate the context. Design must remain objective as opposed to subjective, being created from a technical, almost mathematical process, though that should not completely eliminate the creativity that goes into the design. If anything, the limits of the process forces the designer to come up with more creative solutions that prioritizes the function to create the form.