Basel to Boston: An Itinerary for Modernist Typography in America

Starting in the 1960s, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) became one of the most visible points of entry in America for the so-called “Swiss-style,” a distinctive, modernist approach to graphic design. Three women were largely responsible for its success: Therese Moll, Jacqueline Casey, and Muriel Cooper. While Casey and Cooper have begun to get their due, Moll—a visiting designer from Basel—remains almost unknown. This article examines why MIT provided such fertile ground for this style, before it became the lingua franca of corporate modernism, and how, by the 1980s, it traveled from print to screens.