Hans G. Conrad

Hans G. Conrad ( born June 11, 1926 in Busslingen as Johann Konrad Gerold, † December 26, 2003 in Cologne ) was an influential photographer and designer of the 20th century.

Life and work

Hans G. Conrad grew up in modest circumstances and graduated from the school work of Brown, Boveri & Cie. in Baden, Switzerland. In the late 1940s he came into Zurich in contact with the artists, architects, designers and publicists Max Bill. Conrad worked for Bill when he had the task of the Swiss Pavilion at the Milan Triennale design 1951. During this time, Conrad worked for the Swiss architect and designer Alfred Roth ( traveling exhibition of contemporary Swiss architecture 1951). 1952-54 Conrad designed advertising campaigns for the German - American furniture manufacturer Knoll International Florence and Hans Knoll.

By Max Bill, who was next to Otl Aicher and Inge Aicher -Scholl one of the founders of the College of Design, Conrad has already gone during the founding years of the HfG, probably from 1 December 1952 to Ulm. He was the first student of HfG: his student ID was valid from 1 January 1953 although the official classes only began on 3 August 1953.

First he studied product design, then visual communication. In Ulm Conrad met his first wife, the HfG student Eva- Maria Koch. Together with Otl Aicher developed the Conrad exhibition system for manufacturers of electrical equipment Max Braun, which was first used in 1955 on the German Radio, Phono and television exhibition in Dusseldorf. In this design framework, the later Schneewittchensarg baptized phono - radio combination Phonosuper Brown SK 1956 presented four, one of the most influential design developments of the 20th century (designed by Hans Gugelot, Dieter Rams, Otl Aicher ). As a final project, he designed an exhibition bus for Brown, but this was not realized.

Starting in 1958, Conrad served as Head of the fair and exhibition design at Braun. In 1962 he took over the position of the global advertising head of Lufthansa. He commissioned Otl Aicher and his development group E5 at the Ulm School of Design in order to develop a visual identity for Lufthansa. Otl Aicher's concept of 1962 is considered a milestone for the development of rational hergeleiteter corporate design concepts and is used in its essential elements to this day.

1969-72 Conrad was a member of the Committee on Visual Design for the Olympic Games of Munich (Chairman: Anton Stankowski ). The management of the Division XI ( Visual Design ) had Otl Aicher.

From 1970, Conrad was a member of the editorial board of the Cologne business magazine Capital ( with today's position of Creative Director comparable). Editor of the journal was Adolf Theobald, her chief editor until 1974 Ferdinand Simoneit, 1974 John Gross. The magazine developed under whose leadership to one of opinion-leading media in Germany.

In January 1989, Conrad Capital left. In October 1992 he suffered a stroke. He died after a long illness on December 26, 2003 in a nursing home in CologneRodenkirchen.