The debate about values of modernity and post-modernity has proved to be a topic deserving further discussion. In the specific field of Graphic Design, this debate has led to a critical reassessment of those fundamental concepts generally known as the modern paradigm. This results in a kind of massive disqualification of the parameters then enunciated. Observing typography, this thesis proposes an approach to modern Graphic Design, focusing the discourse of two people, both representative of movements whose importance to its consolidation is outstanding: Jan Tschichold (and the New Typography) and Emil Ruder (and Swiss Typography). Theoretical and practical formulations by these authors and issues tackled by them, as well as the discussion of ideas concerning the two movements, are still referential nowadays. They enable us to retrieve - at least in part - the complexity and richness which marked the Design thought in that period.