Otl Aicher (May 13, 1922 – September 1, 1991), also known as
Otto Aicher, was one of the leading
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
graphic designerA graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
s of the 20th century.
Aicher was a classmate and friend of Werner Scholl, and through him met Werner's family, including his siblings
HansHans Fritz Scholl was a core and founding member of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany.-Biography:...
and
Sophie SchollSophia Magdalena Scholl was active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans...
, both of whom would be executed in 1943 for their membership in the
White RoseThe White Rose was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor...
resistance movement in
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
. Like the Scholls, Aicher was strongly opposed to the Nazi movement.
Otl Aicher (May 13, 1922 – September 1, 1991), also known as
Otto Aicher, was one of the leading
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
graphic designerA graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
s of the 20th century.
Aicher was a classmate and friend of Werner Scholl, and through him met Werner's family, including his siblings
HansHans Fritz Scholl was a core and founding member of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany.-Biography:...
and
Sophie SchollSophia Magdalena Scholl was active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans...
, both of whom would be executed in 1943 for their membership in the
White RoseThe White Rose was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor...
resistance movement in
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
. Like the Scholls, Aicher was strongly opposed to the Nazi movement. He was arrested in 1937 for refusing to join the
Hitler YouthThe Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung .-Origins:The first NSDAP-related organization of German youth was the Jugendbund...
, and consequently he was failed on his
abiturAbitur is a designation used in Germany and Finland for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling...
(college entrance) examination in 1941. He was subsequently drafted into the German army to fight in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, though he tried to leave at various times. In 1945 he deserted the army, and went into hiding at the Scholls' house in
WutachWutach is a rural municipality on the northern edge of the district of Waldshut in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It has a combined administration with the neighbouring town of Bonndorf. There is no town as such called Wutach: the municipality includes the villages of Ewattingen , Münchingen and...
.
In 1946, after the end of the war, Aicher began studying
sculptureSculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard and/or plastic material, sound, and/or text and or light, commonly stone , metal, glass, or wood. Some sculptures are created directly by finding or carving; others are assembled, built together and fired, welded, molded,...
at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. In 1947, he opened his own studio in
UlmUlm is a city in the German Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at 120,000 , forms an urban district of its own and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau district. Ulm, founded around 850, is rich in history and traditions...
.
In 1952 he married
Inge SchollInge Scholl was the daughter of Robert Scholl, the mayor of Forchtenberg, and was the sister of Hans and Sophie Scholl...
, the older sister of Werner, Hans and Sophie.
In 1953, along with Inge Scholl and Max Bill, he founded the
Ulm School of DesignThe Ulm School of Design existed for 15 years in Germany from 1953 to 1968.. It was founded by Inge Aicher-Scholl, Otl Aicher and Max Bill, who was a student at the Bauhaus....
(Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm), which became one of Germany's leading educational centres for design during the 1950s and 1960s. Faculty and students include such notable designers as
Tomás MaldonadoTomás Maldonado . Argentine painter, designer and thinker, is considered one of the main theorists of the legendary ”Ulm Model”, a design philosophy developed during his tenure at the Ulm School of Design in Germany...
,
Max BillMax Bill was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer.Bill was born in Winterthur...
, and
Peter Seitzfor the Labor Relations arbitrator, see Peter SeitzPeter Seitz is a graphic designer, author, teacher and business owner who served as the first Design Director at The Walker Art Center , and helped establish the graphic design program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.-Early career and...
.
He was heavily involved in corporate branding and designed the logo for
LufthansaDeutsche Lufthansa AG is the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried, and the flag carrier of Germany. The name of the company is derived from Luft , and Hansa .The airline is the world's fifth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried,...
Airlines in 1969.
Aicher may be best known for being the lead designer for the 1972 Munich Olympics. He created a new set of
pictogramA pictograph is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Earliest examples of pictographs include ancient or prehistoric drawings or paintings found on rock walls...
s that paved the way for the ubiquitous
stick figureA stick figure is a very simple type of drawing made of lines and dots, often of the human form or other animals. In a stick figure, the head is represented by a circle, sometimes embellished with details such as eyes, mouth or crudely scratched-out hair. The arms, legs and torso are all...
s currently used in public signs.
http://www.design-technology.info/designers/page31.htm He also created the first official Olympic Mascot, a striped dachshund named
WaldiWaldi was the first official Olympic mascot. Created for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, he was a dachshund, a popular breed of dog from Germany, which represent the attributes required for athletes — resistance, tenacity and agility. Waldi was designed by Otl Aicher and modeled on a real dog,...
.
In 1980, Otl Aicher became a consultant of the kitchen company
bulthaupbulthaup is a German kitchen manufacturer, founded in 1949 by Martin Bulthaup. The company is located in Aich near Bodenkirchen in Lower Bavaria....
. He created the
rotisrotis is a typeface developed in 1988 by Otl Aicher, a German graphic designer and typographer. In rotis, Aicher explores an attempt at maximum legibility through a highly unified yet varied typeface family that ranges from full serif, glyphic, and sans-serif...
font family in 1988, naming it after the domicile of Rotis in the city of
Leutkirch im AllgäuLeutkirch im Allgäu is a city in south-eastern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is part of the district of Ravensburg, in the western, Württembergish part of the Allgäu region. It belongs to the administrative region of Tübingen....
, where Aicher lived and kept his studio which is still used today by bulthaup.
He has also designed the logo of Munich Airport which is just the letter "M" in a special font.
Aicher died on September 1, 1991, after being struck in a traffic accident.
Publications
Aicher wrote many books on design and other subjects, including:
- "The Kitchen is for Cooking" (1982)
- "Walking in the Desert" (1982)
- "Critique of the Automobile" (1984)
- "Inside the War" (1985)
- "The World as Design" (Die Welt Als Entwurf) (1991)
- "Analogous and Digital" (Analog Und Digital) (1991)
External links