Understanding the brief

The brief asks that we produce an essay of no less than 1,500 words on a chosen designer. The brief doesn't specify a maximum word count, so the goal should be to reach 1,500 or above (within reason, of course!).

We have the option to chose our designers from a list. The options are shown below:

Furthermore, the brief suggests that our essay is structured as a response to a question. For example: ‘How did Wolfgang Weingart become “the father” of New Wave typography?’. This question shouldn’t just be general, such as ‘Who is Wolfgang Weingart?’, it should really focus on their work and be an opening point to give rich, detailed information of them.

The final essay should be presented as a digital bio app, illustrated with images of the chosen designers app. In the brief, it is suggested that this bio-app could be designed similarly to the designers signature style, an visual way of incorporating their work into the final essay.

Josef Müller-Brockmann

I decided to go with Josef Müller-Brockmann as the focus of my essay. My reason for choosing this designer is that I have been intrigued and excited by his style since I learned about him when covering the Swiss Style. The Swiss Style is probably one of my favourite design eras, as I feel that designers really stepped forwards during this time and created posters/designs that would still be appropriate and usable in the modern world. Going back to week __in my Design History module where we were first introduced to the Swiss Style, I couldn’t believe that many of them were created over half a century ago, with some dated back to the 50s! Evidently, Swiss Style Designers have left their mark on the design world, which I feel would make an excellent question to answer for my design essay.

Writing the essay

Before designing my bio app, I had to write my essay. I wanted to have a solid draft before I started creating digital concepts, as having the text that I intend to include is vital for deterring font positions, hierarchy and more.

I took some time to determine what question I would use as the prompt for my essay, as the brief stated that we should write this as a response to a question. It took me a while to form this as I wanted to use a question that was open ended enough to allow me to expand to a 1500 word response, but not too simple such as ‘Who is Josef Müller-Brockman’. In the end, I used the following:

How has Josef Müller-Brockmann’s unique approach to graphic design had a lasting impact on the design world?

I feel that this question was ideal for my essay. It asks a specific detail, yet allows me to expand to a number of areas as most points could easily be linked back to the question by talking about design today.

To make the essay more manageable and easy to divide when it comes to designing the bio app, I thought it’d be best to split the content into a few sections. These are as follows: