When asked “What does order mean to you?”
Josef Müller-Brockmann replied:
Order was always wishful thinking for me. For 60 years I have produced disorder in files, correspondence and books. In my work, however, I have always aspired to a distinct arrangement of typographic and pictorial elements, the clear identification of priorities. The formal organisation of the surface by means of the grid, a knowledge of the rules that govern legibility (line length, word and letter spacing and so on) and the meaningful use of colour are among the tools a designer must master in order to complete his or her task in a rational and economic matter.
Schwemer-Scheddin, Y. (Date unknown) Reputations: Josef Müller-Brockmann. Available at: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-josef-muller-brockmann (Accessed: 24/10/21). Interview First published in Eye no. 19 vol. 5, 1995
I like this quote as I find the humour in my relation to his experience of having ‘disordered files’ as I am naturally quite chaotic and as the quote ‘creative minds are rarely tidy’ sums up well. Yet in his work he uses grids and approaches his work in a methodical, organised way.