This year’s financial statement – covering the 2024 financial year – contains a substantial monograph on Max Huber.
Max Huber, one of the most influential graphic designers and visual artists of the 20th century, continues to inspire generations of creatives with his innovative vision and distinctive approach to design.
Born in 1919 in Baar, in the Swiss canton of Zug, Huber moved to Milan in 1940, where he began working at the studio of Antonio Boggeri, a pioneer of modern Italian graphic design. Boggeri took the young graphic artist on immediately, impressed by his business card. At first glance, the elegant card looked like it had been printed, but on closer inspection, Boggeri could see the letters had been hand-drawn with extraordinary precision. Here, he soon became renowned for his unique style, and crossed paths with artists of the calibre of Bruno Munari, Erberto Carboni, Luigi Veronesi and Albe Steiner.
In a career spanning over five decades, Huber worked in a wide range of disciplines, including publishing. In 1946, he embarked on a fruitful collaboration with Giulio Einaudi, giving a rationalist edge to the typographic design used in his editorial production. In 1947, with Albe Steiner, who would go on to become a great friend and a true mentor, he designed the graphics for the Milan Triennial VIII, an exhibition on abstract and concrete art that he staged with Lanfranco Bombelli and Max Bill.
Along with Albe and Lica Steiner, Huber contributed to the weekly publication “Il Politecnico” (1945-1947), a political-literary magazine produced under the direction of Elio Vittorini.
A great lover of jazz, he would bring this musical inspiration into his work, which is characterised by the dynamism of the compositions and the skilful use of overlapping effects and photomontages.
In 1950, at the request of the Milanese architect Carlo Pagani, he designed the logo for the department store La Rinascente. In graphic design for advertising, he was able to transform complex messages into powerful images that could be understood immediately. Max Huber’s ability to use bright colours and geometric shapes revolutionised the landscape of design. The creation of logos for Esselunga, Coin, Officine Grafiche Nava, Tipo Print, Autovox, Formenti, Ticino Vita, and many others, led to the creation of iconic advertising campaigns that left their mark on an entire era.
As early as the 1950s, he collaborated with the brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni to work on the graphic elements of their large-scale installations for companies such as RAI, ENI and Montecatini (later Montedison).
In 1962, he married Aoi Kono, illustrator and graphic designer, daughter of the famous Japanese graphic designer Takashi Kono. A few years later, again with the Castiglioni brothers, he organised the major exhibition “Vie d’acqua da Milano al mare”, which opened at the Palazzo Reale in Milan in 1963.
And, of course, there was his long teaching career, which began in Milan in 1947 at La Rinascita, continued from 1959 to 1962 at La Scuola del Libro dell’Umanitaria and resumed again in the 1970s with a teaching position at La Scuola Politecnica di Design founded by Nino Di Salvatore. Finally, from 1978 to 1984, he taught graphic design at CSIA (Centro Scolastico per le Industrie Artistiche) in Lugano.
Max Huber received numerous accolades in his lifetime, including the prestigious Compasso d’Oro award in 1954. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries all over the world.
He died in Mendrisio on 16 November 1992.
The Max Huber Archives are kept at the home and studio of his widow Aoi Huber-Kono in Novazzano.
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