Ken Hiebert

Ken Hiebert was born in Mt. Lake, Minnesota in 1930. He lived in Basel, Switzerland from 1954 to 1964, and studied at Allgemeine Gewerbeschule from 1959–1964. 

That year, he returned to the United States and became faculty at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, where he remained for two years. In 1966 he became faculty at PCS, University of the Arts (Arts) in Philadelphia. In spring of 1973, he was a visiting faculty at Yale University. In 1999, he retired from Arts, and in spring of 2001 became visiting faculty at Carnegie Mellon. As of 2017, Hiebert resides in Gwynned, Pennsylvania.

The materials in the archive document Hiebert’s work at the Basel School of Design and his pioneering program of graphic design at the UArts. They provide insight into his influential design books, public lectures and graphic work, and include samples of student work, as well as curricula he taught at UArts and as visiting faculty at Yale University and Carnegie Mellon. The collection highlights the impact of Swiss design on American Modernist style.