Otl Aicher
Otl Aicher is a famous graphic designer and typographer from Ulm, Germany. Born in 1922, Aicher is most commonly recognised by the work he did for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich where he created a series of 21 stick figure pictograms to give a visual identity to each sport of the Olympic Games at the time, these consisted of icons like figure skating, archery, running, cycling as well as many others. His design work for the Olympic Games still has a huge influence on design in the modern world and can still be see in certain objects like toilet and changing room signage in addition to some road and highway signage, these are often objects that we see on a daily basis and allow instructions to be communicated in a much simpler form.[1]
In addition to his work in pictograms and iconography, Otl Aicher was renowned for his typographical influence where he shared many of the same principles and philosophies to that of the Bauhaus movement and the Modernist movement. His focus on using typography to communicate led the way for the International Typographic Style that came to light around the mid 1900’s and his work became a huge influence to the movement as well as the design industry as a collective. Otl Aicher was a supporter of the Modernist typographical movement that was inspired by the philosophies of the Bauhaus design movement in the early 1900’s and he commonly used sans-serif typefaces throughout his work including the typeface Univers, which he used in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.[1]
Otl Aicher went on to found the Ulm School of Design in his home town of Ulm, Germany alongside Max Bill, the Ulm School of Design was consider one of the most influential design education establishments since the closure of the Bauhaus School of Design in Berlin and they aimed to inspire designers on the modernist principles and philosophies they practiced and studied throughout their life time. Throughout his later life, Aicher went on to develop corporate identities for companies and brands like Munich Airport and the University of Konstanz.[2]
I have included some of Otl Aicher’s work below to illustrate his use of typography and his focus on simplicity and modernist principles.
References & Sources
- Famous Graphic Designers. 2021. Otl Aicher | Biography, Designs and Facts. Available at: https://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/otl-aicher.
- Wikipedia. 2021. Otl Aicher – Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otl_Aicher.