Colour in advertising joseph binder biography

JOSEPH BINDER
COLOUR FOLLOWS FUNCTION

Text by BERNHARD DENSCHER

“Binder was a city lover whose thinking was entirely modern.” These were the words of Joseph Binder’s wife and long-standing companion Carla Binder, as she remembered her husband: “You can’t express it any other way.” Since the 1920s Joseph Binder had been one of Austria’s most innovative designers and after emigrating to the US in 1936 and opening a studio in New York he was able to exert a lasting influence on the American scene as well.

Joseph Binder was born in Vienna on 3 March 1898.

He completed an apprenticeship as a lithographer before attending the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule), where he was taught by Bertold Löffler. After finishing his studies, he initially worked at the shared studio ESBETA before establishing his own independent studio in 1924.

Success soon followed: only a short time later he created complete corporate advertising ca