The Mid-Century Consensus

After 1945, modernism went corporate. The Swiss grid system brought mathematical order to layouts; designers like Paul Rand, Saul Bass, and Massimo Vignelli gave global companies faces the whole world could recognize.

This was design's golden age of confidence: a belief that clarity, simplicity, and good taste were universal values. Airports, subways, and boardrooms were remade in Helvetica — and the corporate identity manual was born.