Born in the Netherlands in 1928, Wim Crouwel trained at the Art Academy Minerva (1946–49) and after completing his military service, started his professional life as an abstract painter. He studied at the Amsterdam Art Academy (1952–53) and during that time joined an exhibition design firm (1952), where he gained his first experience of the possibilities of graphic design. Inspired by Swiss design, in 1954 he stopped painting and sought work as a freelance designer in Amsterdam.
During the 1950s, Crouwel traveled to Switzerland, meeting with other designers and witnessing the emerging International Style. An avid proponent of international debate, he became the first general secretary of the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda) in 1963. In the same year, Crouwel, product designer Friso Kramer, and architect and graphic designer Benno Wissing, together with Paul and Dick Schwarz, founded Total Design, the Netherlands' first multidisciplinary design studio, which was to become a dominant force in Dutch design. Through their work, Crouwel and his colleagues had significant influence on the national and cultural identity of the Netherlands. Crouwel’s portfolio ranges from postage stamps for the Dutch Post Office (1968) to an extensive body of work for the Stedelijk Museum (1964–85)—all testimony to his achievements in the refinement and application of the grid. Crouwel is also especially recognized for his innovative systematic approach to design thinking. In 1967, as a response to early digital typesetting, he designed the experimental typeface New Alphabet (in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York), devising a matrix within which letterforms were constructed as units on a grid.
In 1972, Crouwel became a part-time professor at Delft Technical University (TU Delft), and in 1980 he left Total Design when he was appointed a full-time professor at TU. In 1985 he was named Director of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. He consolidated his longtime commitment to education in assuming the Private Chair at Erasmus University, Rotterdam (1987–93).
Wim Crouwel holds a number of honorary positions, including Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE); Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion; Honorary Royal Designer for Industry, UK; Honorary Fellow of the Society of Typographic Designers, UK; and Honorary Member of the Deutsche Werkbund. His work, which has received many European design awards, has been exhibited internationally, most recently in the 2011 retrospective “Wim Crouwel: A Graphic Odyssey” at the Design Museum, London and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Crouwel's achievements are the subject of several books, including Wim Crouwel Alphabets by Kees Broos and David Quay (2003) and Wim Crouwel: Mode en Module by Frederike Huygen and Hugues Boekraad (1997). His lectures and essays have been collected in Wim Crouwel: In His Own Words, edited by Toon Lauwen (2010).
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Understanding Understanding: New from Richard Saul Wurman
Understanding Understanding
by Richard Saul Wurman
Publisher: Richard Saul Wurman and Jack Dangermond
Published July 30, 2017
From the author of Information Architecture, who says about his newest book: “This is a book for people to dip into, as they would walk in and out of the room of a dinner party and embrace their interests. . . Before the rules on how to organize information, before you learn grammar, before you work hard at expanding your vocabulary and go through the exercises of parallel meanings of things as using a Thesaurus and as one writes papers in class, before any learning one must understand.”
The Hard Life by Jasper Morrison
The Hard Life
by Jasper Morrison
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published in US: May 22, 2017
Photographs taken by designer Jasper Morrison of objects in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, Portugal. “The objects photographed and described may be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set of design at its purest. The Hard Life is a continuation of Morrison’s celebration of the ordinary and offers a new perspective on his design philosophy.”
Paula Scher: Works - Order from Unit Editions
Paula Scher: Works
Editors: Tony Brook & Adrian Shaughnessy
Design: Spin
Publisher: Unit Editions
Published April 2017
New book covering the career of of master designer Paula Scher, called “the most influential woman graphic designer on the planet.” (Ellen Lupton), This definitive, chronological visual record spans Paula’s early days in the music industry as an art director with CBS and Atlantic records; the launch of her first studio, Koppel & Scher; and her 25-year engagement with Pentagram.
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Type Tells Tales: New from Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Type Tells Tales
by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published May 30, 2017
Reveals how type can become both content and illustration, as letters take the form of people, animals, cars, or planes. With numerous illustrations by F. T. Marinetti, Bruno Munari, and Francis Picabia, among others, as well as by contemporary designers such as Richard Eckersley, John Hendrix, Maira Kalman, and Corita Kent.
The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design: New from Steven Heller and Greg D’Onofrio
The Moderns
by Steven Heller and Greg D’Onofrio
Publisher: Abrams
Published September 19, 2017
Featuring more than 60 designers whose magazine, book, and record covers; advertisements and package designs; posters; and other projects created the visual aesthetics of postwar modernity in America. Some were émigrés from Europe; others were homegrown; all were intoxicated by elemental typography, primary colors, photography, and geometric or biomorphic forms. Some are well-known, others are honored in this volume for the first time, and together they comprised a movement that changed our design world.
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