How can we communicate effectively when over 6,000 languages are spoken worldwide? How do we take in information when we can't read or understand the language? Communicating through pictograms is one solution to this problem. With the pictograms he developed for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, the designer Otl Aicher made significant contributions to a global "language without words" that everyone could understand.
Otl Aicher was a generalist. In his many roles as a university founder, graphic designer, typographer, management consultant, sculptor, philosopher, and writer, he was a creative intellectual. He is one of the most influential German protagonists of 20th-century design. 13 May 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Freedom and democracy
Aicher's firm commitment to principles of freedom and enlightenment after 1945 was informed by his experiences in Nazi Germany, including his close ties to members of the non-violent resistance movement associated with the Scholl siblings. In 1953, together with Inge Aicher-Scholl and Max Bill, he opened the Ulm School of Design (Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm) in 1953. In addition to serving as a member of its board of directors and rector, he taught visual communication. During this time he also developed graphic images for companies such as Braun and Lufthansa.
One project in particular by Otl Aicher has become part of our collective memory: the colourful corporate identity of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Starting in 1967, Aicher worked with the Olympic organizing committee as the head of its visual communication team. A different Germany was to be conveyed: one that exuded a sense of rationalism, not nationalism, upholding the Olympic idea of peaceful coexistence between countries. With its liberal democracy, West Germany was to be seen as a reliable, non-threatening partner in the global community.
A fundamental aspect of this new image was Aicher's visual language, including the pictograms used to represent the various Olympic sporting events and auxiliary programmes. These icons also served as the basis for the visual guidance system he developed for Frankfurt Airport around the same time. For 50 years, Otl Aicher's pictograms have been an integral part of visual communication around the world. This "language without words" conveys information through pictorial symbols and is found wherever universal communication transcending language barriers is required.
Universal standard
Then as now, companies and institutions commission the development of pictograms - often defined more by corporate identity guidelines and less by a need for maximum comprehension. Aicher's goal was to establish a universally applicable standard as an alternative to this "Babylonian confusion of signs" (Otl Aicher, January 1976). Today, the creation of "otl aicher pictograms" is a milestone in design history. They were revolutionary in their use of a systematic approach to simplify communication more radically than their predecessors. Aicher was convinced that reducing the form and structure to the bare essentials would maximize the clarity and recognizability of the pictograms. His copyrighted system follows a standardized grid and is consistently simple in its execution. The symbols follow uniform design rules, comparable to grammar rules in verbal languages.
Since the 1970s, Aicher's system has been continuously expanded for new areas of application and topics. The agency S/O/G has been responsible for this legacy and its worldwide licensing since 2015. Over 700 pictograms representing a variety of categories are available online at otl-aicher-piktogramme.They have been used for orientation and guidance systems including at the Design Museum in London, exhibition grounds, medical clinics, school buildings, and the airports in Frankfurt, Munich, and Hanover.
