Josef Muller Brockmann is...

Josef Muller Brockmann was a Swiss graphic designer, born in 1914.  He studied architecture, design , and the history of art at school in Zurich.  Brockmann worked as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer once he was finished with school.  He opened his own studio in 1936, which specialized in graphic design and photography.  Brockmann was a founding editor of The New Design, and eventually became the design consultant for IBM. 

Brockmann also had several books published.  His works included The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems (1961), Grid Systems in Graphic Design (1961), History of the Poster (1971), and A History of Visual Communications (1971).

A modular grid is a graphic design grid system that uses uniformly sized rectangles or squares that let the designer build his composition from the ground up.  Each module can be filled with text, images, or left as white space.  The grid is important because it keeps the designer from producing compositions that are unbalanced or out of line.  It gives the designer an opportunity to play around with the elements of the design, rather than putting down one object and building around it.

Josef Muller Brockmann is important to us because he was ahead of his time in terms of page structure. This allowed him to make effective compositions every time, and therefore make the most effective advertisements or posters.