Otl aicher olympics
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The pictograms Otl Aicher designed have been pointing the way for 40 years or more and are encountered all over the world. otl aicher pictograms set benchmarks in directional signage, advertising, sporting events, websites and media of all kinds.
Pictograms convey information with the aid of representational symbols and are to be found wherever trans-linguistic communication plays a part. There are more than 700 otl aicher pictograms on the most diverse of topics, making the system the most comprehensive of its kind in existence.
More about the system
Otl Aicher did not stop at devising a unique system of pictograms, however. Co-founder of the legendary Design College at Ulm and creator of corporate images for the likes of Lufthansa, ERCO, bulthaup, FSB or the ZDF, Germany’s second state TV channel, he is considered one of Germany’s most formative designers.
More about Otl Aicher
Otl Aicher came up with a set of pictograms designed to help spectators at the Olympic Games in Munich to find their bearings. He was busy conceiving directional signage for Fra
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From inventing colours to designing the Olympic Games, we take a look at the extraordinary work of Otl Aicher
The close connection between the colour blue and the local colour of southern Germany reappeared 10 years later in another of Aicher’s projects. For the visual appearance of Munich Airport, Aicher and the architect and designer Eberhard Stauss, together with whom he had already worked during the 1972 Olympic Games, created a colour concept centred on the colour “airport blue light". As with the 1972 Olympic Games, which were conceived as the Games in the Green (i.e. in nature), Munich Airport was designed as an airport “in the green”. Aicher and Stauss once again derived the colours from the specific light and colour schemes of the Alpine foothills, with the radiant blue being characteristic of the “foehn-blown sky of Upper Bavaria”. This meant that the view from Munich was directed towards the south, towards the mountains – in other words, the landscape in which Aicher himself was living and working at the time. This light blue was complemented by a darker blue as w
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Designer, fighter, thinker: celebrating Otl Aicher's impressive legacy with 100 posters
An iconic designer, a man of resistance, and a highly politically thinking and acting individual who went against fascism and the Nazi regime, Otto „Otl“ Aicher was one of the most formative 20th century German designers in the field of visual communication and arguably a pioneer and trailblazer of corporate design.
Significantly involved in developing numerous notable companies’ corporate designs that are still relevant, his legacy reigns supreme. On the occasion of Aicher’s 100th birthday, HfG-Archiv / Museum Ulm presents the exhibition “Otl Aicher 100 Jahre 100 Plakate” (Otl Aicher 100 Years 100 Posters).
“As a co-founder of the legendary Ulm School of Design (1953-1968), where he was for a time head of the Visual Communication department, he continued to have a lasting impact on design education. His works have been exhibited internationally and are still a model for generations of future designers” notes HfG Archiv Ulm
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