Armin Hofmann is a Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 graphic designer

Graphic designer

A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...

. Hofmann followed Emil Ruder

Emil Ruder

Emil Ruder , Swiss typographer and graphic designer, who with Armin Hofmann helped to found the Schule für Gestaltung Basel and a graphic style known as the Swiss Style....

 as head of the graphic design department at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel

Schule für Gestaltung Basel

Switzerland's Schule für Gestaltung Basel at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule and its students have influenced the international graphic design community since it opened in 1968. Its tradition was shaped by influential personalities such as Armin Hofmann, Emil Ruder, Kurt Hauert and Wolfgang Weingart...

 (Basel School of Design) and was instrumental in developing the graphic design style known as the Swiss Style

International Typographic Style

The International Typographic Style, also known as the Swiss Style, is a graphic design style developed in Switzerland in the 1950s that emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity. Hallmarks of the style are asymmetric layouts, use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk, and...

. He is well known for his poster

Poster

A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...

s, which emphasized economical use of colour and fonts, in reaction to what Hofmann regarded as the "trivialization of colour." His posters have been widely exhibited as works of art in major galleries, such as the New York Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

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He was also an influential educator, retiring in 1987. In 1965 he wrote the Graphic Design Manual, a popular textbook in the field.