Otl Aicher was one of the most significant 20th century German designers. He would have turned one hundred on 13 May 2022. Designer Dieter Rams, who celebrated his 100th birthday in May, met Otl Aicher several times during his time at Braun.
Photo & Copyright: Fritz Frenkler, f/p design GmbH
On 10 September 2021, Fritz Frenkler, co-founder of f/p design GmbH and vice-chairman of the iF Design Foundation, met Dieter Rams for an interview at his home in Kronberg im Taunus (Hesse, Germany). The topic: Otl Aicher and the Braun company.
Klaus Klemp (Dieter and Ingeborg Rams Foundation) was also present. Marking what would have been Otl Aicher's 100th birthday, we publish an abridged version of the interview.
Fritz Frenkler (FF): Dieter, how did you get to know Otl Aicher and what were your experiences with him? The Braun company and the HfG Ulm are often mentioned in the same breath. How many times have you been to Ulm?
Dieter Rams (DR): I was in Ulm a few times, mostly together with Erwin Braun. At the very beginning, Braun sent me there to present the Perspex lid of the SK 4 to Hans Gugelot so that he would approve the design. Gugelot and I always got along well. We also discussed the wood for the SK 4. He chose maple because he loved light wood; I was more in favor of white beech, but those were minor issues. By the way, it was because of him that I got into Braun in the first place. Gugelot voted for me when they were looking for an architect. It was pure luck that I ended up at Braun.
FF: So, you started as an architect at Braun, didn't you? How, then, did you get into design?
DR: Actually, I wanted to continue as an architect. I was fascinated by urban planning. For two years, I had already worked in Otto Apel's architectural office. At that time, Erwin Braun was looking for an architect. I got the job, which I had only applied for because of a bet with a colleague at Apel. Erwin Braun showed me the first design models by Hans Gugelot, which were to be presented at the 1955 radio exhibition in Düsseldorf. They weren't actually finished yet, and it was more a matter of re-designing existing products with the latest technology.
German Radio, Television and Phonographic Exhibition, 26 August to 4 September 1955
FF: So, you came into contact with Hans Gugelot right away. And your relationship with Otl Aicher, how did that develop?
DR: In the early days he didn't notice me at all. Neither did Max Bill, the real ‘ruler’ of the early HfG. They both blanked me. Max Bill was very good at that, at ignoring you; Otl Aicher was more subtle about it. But he, too, hardly ever noticed me. In my early days at Braun, I wasn’t really involved in the many discussions about design; I was – consciously or unconsciously – excluded from that. But I realized that they talked to each other on a different level. That was the close relationship that Erwin and Artur Braun and also Fritz Eichler had with Ulm.
FF: And how did things go between Erwin Braun and the Ulm people?
DR: Erwin Braun was very interested in Hans Gugelot. He made donations to the HfG and, later, to the Gugelot Institute. So, yes, he had a close relationship with Ulm.
FF: What was the relationship between the HfG Ulm and Braun like? Max Bill doesn't appear anywhere in the company’s history.
DR: Max Bill was not involved in the Braun project. Maybe it seemed too small for him at the beginning. He had other lucrative clients. In 1957, he had already left the school. But when Walter Gropius came to the opening of the HfG Ulm in October 1955, he showed Bill all the Braun products. They didn't mention me later in Ulm, even though I had been involved in the SK4 from the beginning and the basic design and the transparent acrylic glass cover had been developed by us in Frankfurt. Ulm negated me. That lasted beyond the end of the school, when I tried to rebuild Braun's hi-fi division with Dr. Godehard Günther and his company Analog Digital Systems (ADS).
Opening of the University of Design in Ulm
FF: What did Otl Aicher have to do with Analog Digital Systems (ADS)?
Klaus Klemp (KK): He designed the type logo (a/d/s/), the visual identity and brochures in the 80s.
DR: I knew his work for ERCO, of course, which was fascinating. Initially, I wanted to get Otl Aicher to work more closely with ADS. However, a more intensive collaboration didn't materialize because Dr. Godehard Günther didn’t really believe in him. But I was in Rotis several times.
FF: So, you only met briefly and you simultaneously built two worlds. But you were aware of each other: In Rotis, for instance...
DR: ... he even proudly showed me his Rotis. And I was thrilled by what he had built there: his "own" village with its own electricity. From then on, he never looked past me again.
KK: Let's return to Braun for a moment: In early 1955, Hans Gugelot and Otl Aicher met with Braun, the latter providing grids and typefaces for the advertising. Wolfgang Schmittel quickly implemented that, didn't he?
DR: Schmittel was my equal as head of communications. Otl Aicher pretty much monopolized him. I can still remember a situation where I was present rather by chance. It was about photos for Braun, more and more photos. More and more alternatives. That was typical of Wolfgang Schmittel and Fritz Eichler: another alternative and yet another one. I must have been beaming inside when Otl Aicher, who had initiated the whole thing, came and said: "I don't need any of that. I know what I want." I thought that was great.
FF: Dieter, thank you very much for sharing your memories with us.
Dieter Rams at his house in Kronberg im Taunus
The interview took place in September 2021.
Transcription: Oliver Herwig; Photo credit: f/p design, Fritz Frenkler
Unabridged version of the interview here.
