Jan Tschichold, Karl Gerstner, and Josef Müller-Brockmann are all different individuals with similar goals. They have different methods on design but a similar goal to make design more clearer. Tschichold was a designer that changed the graphic world. He got rid of the old Ornament way of designing.  His layouts consisted to be more readable and clear. He didn’t use serif type but instead san serif. His layout also did not show symmetry but asymmetry. As stated in the reading, “Asymmetry is the rhythmic expression of functional design”. In this case, asymmetry is more optically effective. Tschichold ’s way of designing is that it has variations and that it is modern.

Karl Gerstner is also another designer that created a systematic way to improve a layout. Claiming that there is a solution to a problem. He uses a systematic grid in a mathematic way. He creates a layout that shows various flexible and complex ways of creating a systematic symmetry in a layout. It is also a complex grid that is consistent and creative. According to the reading, “creative process is to be reduced to an act of selection. Designing means: to pick out determining elements and combine them”. By this, Gerstner believed that the more the work was exact the more creative it will be.

Josef Müller-Brockmann made a grid system to make a  “universal system of communication”. The purpose of his grid is to make work that is more based oriented  and constructive. According to the reading, “clearly intelligible, objective, functional, and aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking”. By this, Müller-Brockmann is describing the grid system and its clarity and directness. He created this grid system to show a universal validity. Therefore, how should one design?. Well as presented, there is various ways of designing using different methods from these designers but at the end the goal is to create work that is showcasing clear communication of the message, and that is creative and readable. 

According to Jan Tschichold, people should design with the purpose of clarity. He believes that old typography was outdated for his time. Its focus was geared more towards “beauty” when beauty wasn’t seen as the most important thing. He thought that designers should step away from the principle of arranging everything on a central axis. The reason for that is because makes legibility tougher. He also believes designers shouldn’t use so many typefaces at once.

Karl Gerstner believes that design should be approached with a programme that will generate a number of different solutions. The reason for this is because there will never be just one solution, but there will be one solution that works best over the others. He insists you don’t make creative decisions based on feelings, but by intellectual criteria. Gerstner designed a programme using a method by Fritz Zwicky that was intended for scientists and not designers. He called it “the morphological box of the typogram”.

Josef Muller-Brockmann was a designer that popularized the grid. He thinks that the grid is not only a good way of bringing order to disorder in designs but also a good way of showing a designer’s focused work ethic. Gerstner believes that a “designer’s work should have clearly intelligible, objective, functional, and aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking.” The visual creative work should be a representation of the character of the designer.

Jan Tschichold wrote about the difference between old typography and New typography implying how old typography prioritized beauty or aesthetics over clarity which New typography is all about the most important thing in type today is clarity. He continues to discuss how hard it is to achieve the degree of logical work we need with a central- axis and I think this quote from him explains it the best “Axial arrangements are illogical because the distance of the stressed, central parts from the beginning and end of the word sequences is not usually equal but constantly varies from line to line.”.

Designing Programmes by Karl Gerstner speaks to what we have been learning since we started the school of design, which is basing our design on a process, this process may change from one designer to another, but it always retains its place as the most important part of the design. Karl Gerstner developed a method that we can use to create our design process based on the scientific method of Fritz Zwicky that was mad for scientists, and I believe that all of us use this process from what we learned at school with our variations to it without realizing we are using this method. I think this method should be taught in the Design principles 1 class, I believe it would offer a great amount of clarity about the design process.

Josef Müller-Brockmann wrote about how important it is to use a mathematical grid while designing anything because it shows the professional and constructive mentality of the designer and I believe It offers a lot to the clarity of a design. He proceeds to speak about the importance of constructive design and how it can influence the taste of society. By the end, he mentions all the benefits of the grid including clarity, organizing attention, and efficiency.

In Jan Tschihold’s word, typography has changed throughout generations. In the old days, typography was mainly about “beauty. Typographers would add adornment and additional decorations to make it beautiful. For example, center the type, using different typefaces and type sizes, other design elements like blocks of color…etc. However, today’s typography was different from what typography was in the old days. Typography today is about clarity and not beauty. This means typefaces and sizes are being limited, simple design elements with no additions ornament. And, of course, it’s being played off with readability and legibility. 

Clarity, readability and legibility in typography have been much more emphasized under what Karl Gerstner said. In Design Programs 1964, Karl Gerstner developed a program called the morphological box. The morphological box was a box that guides the sizes, columns and alignments with tiny little boxes that interact with each other. Under this box, designers could quickly know the proportion and keep the consistency with contrast. In Karl Gerstner’s word, typography was a board game. This means there are many ways of solving problems; in this case, the problem is to clarify the text. For example, reading direction, letter spacing, weights, and all these elements make the text more readable and legible. However, that doesn’t mean that it works every time. Typographers are here to experiment on making things work and pick the one that best fits the solution. 

On the other hand, Muller Brockmann pushed the idea of Karl Gerstner’s morphological box, and he simplified the grid. I would say Muller Brockmann pushed the concept of the grid by a mathematical approach. It’s because by looking at the grid, he was dividing a piece of paper by proportion in a precise way. He also explains that if we divide it like this, it can determine where the text should locate, what sizes of the text should be, where the color goes to, and what spaces are being left with. From what Muller Brockmann did and how he explains it, I think Muller Brockmann was making a mathematical theory toward posters or any kind of printed works. It’s because what he approached can be replicated in any type of work. For example, make proportional guidelines out of a book, a poster, magazines …etc. These rules can be applied everywhere, like a mathematical theory that would work every single time. And when it’s being applied, structure and orientation will be formed.

Jan Tschichold, Karl Gerstner, and Josef Müller-Brockmann all had similar ideology when it came to design, whether it’s alignment or grid systems. Tschichold believed that that typography should be legible first and foremost and form follows function, he also believed that layout should be asymmetrical.  The old typography that he talks about, was more for show than function, they didn’t communicate or give context to what was printed, and they weren’t legible enough to deliver the message.  In addition he mentioned that the design principles(size weight color) weren’t being used correctly in the old typography.  The asymmetrical layout of gives more expression, liveliness and variation of layouts than a centered design or symmetrical layout.  Even though a layout is asymmetrical, there has to the an order and cohesion between the content.

Similarly, Josef Müller-Brockmann also believed that a designers work should be clear functional message, but using grids to achieve that.  Brockmann see grid as “an ordering system” that is capable of being analyzed and reproduced, meaning that grids can influence and enhance the taste of a society and the way it conceives forms and colors. Grid system provide designs that are objective, well composed, and refined constitutes the basis of.

Karl Gerstner was a bit more confusing for me to understand.  Gerstner used the systematic morphological box typogram, where has descriptive words that are associated with typography that are put in row of boxes, The words are then combine to create a design.  This seems like a very dynamic way of coming up with different variations.  He also uses a a grid, similarly to the others, but his version seems like a modified grid.

    This week’s reading focused a lot on following a grid. All the readings shared the same ideology that typography’s main goal should be to communicate a message and not just look pretty. Jan Tschichold writes in The New Typography, “when in earlier periods ornament was used, often in an extravagant degree, it only showed how little the essence of typography, which is communication, was understood.” What this shows is that designers went back into old designs and analyzed what worked and what didn’t and realized that the extra flare the ornaments gave was not needed. It did not support the design’s purpose of communicating a message so they removed what didn’t work or fulfill their needs.

    Josef Muller-Brockmann writes in Grid and Design Philosophy about how “working within the grid system means submitting to the law of universal validity.” He seems to have believed that, “the designer’s work should have clearly intelligible, objective, functional, and aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking.” What it seems like to me is that design is becoming more of a mathematical thing rather than a form of expression.

    Everything about design and typography in this reading seems to focus a lot on grids and maths when it comes to composition and hierarchy. Every placement and size has a purpose to communicate a message. However, Brockmann does manage to hint that some expression does remain even when following these mathematical rules by stating, “every visual creative work is a manifestation of the character of the  designer. It is a reflection of his knowledge, his ability, and his mentality.” This hinting at and showing that some artistic expression does remain in a new way for this new era of design.

Jan Tschichold, Karl Gerstner, and Josef Müller-Brockmann all have a similar goal to change the ways of typography but they differ by methods, these approaches can go from being experimental, accurate or in naturalistic form. As for Karl Gerstner, his goal to change typography is for type to be accurate in terms of sizes, value, space, etc. Jan Tschichold’s goal is to alter the old typography in a giving sense of beauty by using asymmetric formats instead of symmetric. Josef Müller-Brockmann uses a similar method from Karl by using grids but he goes for an experimental approach by using the negative space, manipulating the positions of its form and color. I will be discussing each one of the three designers mentioned, by its function and inspirations. 

Starting with Karl Gerstner, he developed a diagram called ‘the morphological box of the typo-gram’ that follows with the terminology of Fritz Zwicky and uses it to determine the accuracy of the type and contains criteria such as color, value, space, weight, etc. It’s more of a scientific method rather than for design. According to the article, ‘Designing Programmes’, Karl stated, “It contains the criteria—the parameters on the left, the relative components on the right—following which marks and signs are to be designed from letters.” While this method was partially capable of aiding its assigned placement and analyzing the programme, Karl would pick some elements in the diagram and combine it to create the characteristics of the type because the importance of typography is for text to be readable. 

Looking at Josef Müller-Brockmann work, he uses a similar method from Karl by using grids but as I stated in my introduction, he was very experimental in using types and elements that were irrational and chaotic. Bring it under his control by manipulating positive and negative space. He also featured his philosophy about grid and design in his article, he stated, “The designer’s work should have the clearly intelligible, objective, functional, and aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking.” To understand how type is represented, Josef uses logical resources and uses it towards his advantage to create not only a sense of characteristics but an essential form of communication.

Lastly, Jan Tschichold differs from the old methods of typography because his approach was for his type to have a nature or best to describe, ‘beauty’. He uses an asymmetrical method for type to be produced at its purest form. According to his article, ‘The New Typography,’ stated, “Asymmetry is the rhythmic expression of functional design. In addition to being more logical, asymmetry has the advantage that its complete appearance is far more optically effective than symmetry.” Apart from symmetrical typography, Jan describes the asymmetric typography to be more effective to create his own ‘beauty’ type because it gives him a more natural order and it’s more flexible for his design.