Will Burtin

Will Burtin ( born January 17, 1908 in Cologne, † January 18, 1972 in New York City, USA ) was an American designer, graphic designer specializing in commercial graphics and exhibition designer German origin. Burtin is known as the father of "Corporate Identity" in the 1940s in the United States.

Life and work

Will Burtin learned 1922-1926 typography at the Chamber of Crafts in Cologne and studied from 1926 graphics and " Artistic and Technical shaping " ( industrial design ) to the Cologne factory schools with Richard Riemerschmid and Jacob Erbar. In 1932 he married Hilde Munk ( 1910-1960 ), the cousin of the aviation pioneer and inventor of the wind tunnel Max Munk. From 1927 to 1938 Will Burtin ran his own design studio in Cologne and designed and designed brochures, posters, books, exhibitions, displays, advertising and films for German, French and other clients. When he should be made at the request of Joseph Goebbels as Head of Unit in the Ministry of Propaganda, he fled the U.S. in 1938.

From 1939 to 1943 he taught communication design at Pratt Institute in New York, in 1959 appointed him to the Pratt Institute professor and head of the Department of Visual Communication. In 1949 he was awarded the Medal of the New York Art Directors Club and he was director of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. From 1945 to 1949 he was art director of the magazine " Fortune". He was a member of the Art Directors Club of New York and the Alliance Graphique Internationale AGI. In 1954 he ( together with Saul Bass ) Program Chairman of the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado. ( Also, again in 1955 and 1956).

In collaboration with American scientists, he developed special methods and exhibition models for the graphic and plastic representation of scientific research results. In 1964, work by him (including exhibition models of human cells for the brain and the uranium atom with exhibition catalogs ) at the documenta in Kassel III were shown in the graphic department.

Literature and sources

• Documenta III. International Exhibition; Catalogue: Volume 1: Paintings and Sculpture; Volume 2: Hand drawings; Volume 3: Industrial design, graphic; Kassel / Cologne 1964