Herbert Matter was a Swiss-born American designer and photographer, and was well known for his revolutionary use of photo collaging. Matter heavily influenced design in the 20th century and helped form the many different kinds of design we have today. He was born in Engelberg, Switzerland, in 1907, and grew up in Switzerland. He studied painting and design in Switzerland as well as in France, and he worked with a number of people famous for their innovative and creative ideas and creations, such as AM Cassandre and Le Corbusier. When he returned to Zurich in Switzerland, he created posters for the Swiss National Tourist Office, and instantly internationally received many compliments and praise. When he had reached the end of his education, Matter became a freelance graphic designer and photographer in Paris, not unlike other Swiss graphic designers of that era. He travelled to America in 1936, where he was hired by the great art director Alexy Brodovitch. He worked and created masterpieces for famous magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and many others. He began working as a professor of photography at Yale University in 1952 and ended his teaching career in 1976. He was also a design consultant from 1958 to 1968 to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. In 1977 he was elected to the New York Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography in 1980 and the AIGA award in 1983. 
These designs are very varied in the sense that some of them
are simple and some of them are quite full of information and objects. For
example, the America Calling is quite simple yet has an elegant feel to it. I
think this could be the sepia tones making it look elegant, but this is how it
is effective. It also uses the colours of the American flag to attract an
audience and to get people to look at the poster. It also has a grainy feel to
it, and I think this looks good as it makes the image look older than it actually
is, and ties in well with the sepia tone. The font also comes together with the
old-style theme of the image. The second image is, in my opinion, very crammed
and in-your-face. When I say this I mean it was intentionally meant to look
like this, and the artist has pulled that off spectacularly. My favourite thing
about this image is the fact that the entire image is black and white, with the
contrast quite high, and the instant pop of red in a few words. The font makes
it even harder to read considering the colours in the background clashing with
the colours in the foreground, as well as the actual font itself. This was
meant to stand out, as a new way to attract an audience, and it worked very
well. The third poster is an image of a snowy road, and once again Matter made
a bold and eye-catching design, as the photo in the background is all black and
white, excluding the sky, and then the title in red guides your eyes to the
wording, thus creating an effective poster. It is not a dark shade of red, but
a very bright and saturated shade of red, and works well in this style of work.
