Reduced US shipping on selected titles
A selection of our titles is now available to U.S. customers with reduced shipping from California, through our partnership with the Eames Institute. Explore books on design, architecture, art, photography, and society – or browse a changing selection of top picks on this page – now delivered more quickly and affordably across the United States.
Top Picks
In September 1983, my first book, Die gute Form, was published, to great acclaim from Swiss design circles. Access to the book trade proved more difficult than expected, however, and my cost accounting for the project had been amateurish. The project thus ended in a financial fiasco.
In the course of preparations for my first book, I had made the acquaintance of the artist Richard Paul Lohse (1902–1988). A close friendship developed. Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914–1996) had already taken me under his wing in 1978. Both
were pioneers of Swiss graphic design and co-editors of the epoch-making magazine Neue Grafik. They encouraged my efforts, while not allowing me to evade the strict dictates of the Zurich graphic design tradition. Lohse was an implacable ideologue and no-nonsense socialist, while Müller-Brockmann, just as unrelenting as a designer, was a humanist of great wisdom and gentleness. He had a strong influence on me both as mentor and friend.
Lars Müller Publishers published sixty books during its first decade and gradually managed to gain a foothold in the book trade – first in the German-speaking countries and later on worldwide with our first English titles. The books were often dedicated to the history of Swiss design and architecture, but also occasionally to contemporary art and photography. Financially, the publishing house was unable to make any headway and remained dependent on the income from the thriving design studio. In 1989, an extensive restructuring was necessary.
