To Find, To Simplify, To Humanize
Anton Stankowski and the Logo of the Deutsche Bank
The logo of the Deutsche Bank
is present around the whole world – at the workplace, on the facades of
buildings, in the internet, on advertisements and letterheads. The synthesis
between a diagonal slash and a square has long since become established
as one of the symbols of Western capitalism. At the same time, however,
there is also a whiff of revolution in this design: Anton Stankowski, the
logo's inventor, was also influenced by the ideas of Constructivism and
the Russian avant-garde.
Logodesign
|
|
"Quadrat und Schräge", Silkscreen, 1984
© Stankowski Stiftung, Stuttgart
|
When Anton Stankowski came to Switzerland
in 1929 following his studies at the Folkwang
School in Essen, the young graphic designer was already carrying quite
a bit in his luggage: "The Akzidenz
Grotesk, which I revered, graphics and photography with clear concepts,
designs for paintings that were influenced by Malevich,
Lissitzky,
Mondrian,
and Burchartz,
ideas of simplification and objectification and a knowledge of art movements
in general, ignorance of the traditional conceptions of design, and an
obsession for searching, finding, and doing – this is all I brought with
me to Zurich."
When one takes a closer look at the logo
of the Deutsche Bank that Stankowski was to design forty-five years later,
one immediately sees just how true he remained to the principles he committed
to writing between 1929 and 1937 in his "Design Primer." To this day, the
slash in the square seems timeless, stripped of any superfluous, fashionable
ornament – true to its inventor's sensibility, who remarked about his design:
"Freed from direct symbolism, it remains up to the viewer to make his or
her own observations about the trademark, to arrive at his or her own associations.
Thus, the framing square can be read as a sign for security and the ascending
line can stand for a dynamic development."
Schmiedhof Zurich, Photograph 1932
© Stankowski Stiftung, Stuttgart
Collection of the Deutsche Bank
Stankowski's guidelines
of formal simplification, objectification, and humanization of ideas, functions,
and processes have their origin in constructivist
art, in which the square assumed a special position due to its conciseness,
neutrality, and symmetry. For Kasimir Malevich, it served as a "formula
for the sum of all pure perception and, at the same time, as a sign for
the visual expression of a superior, all-encompassing spiritual principle."
In Stankowski's oeuvre, the square is also a predominant element, as can
easily be seen in works such as his silkscreen series Der
Werkbund from 1993. In Zurich during the twenties, Stankowski came
into contact with a vibrant avant-garde influenced by the ideas of new
design and of "concrete
art." Ideas originating with the Bauhaus
and the Dutch group "de
Stijl" centered around Mondrian and van
Doesburg were discussed in the bustling and highly communicative "Zurich
Circle," to which artists such as Max
Bill (read about his sculpture Kontinuität here)
and Richard
Paul Lohse belonged.
Perspectives, Photograph 1934
© Stankowski Stiftung, Stuttgart
Collection of the Deutsche Bank
Works by Sergey
Eisenstein, Man
Ray, or John
Heartfield inspired Stankowski to use experimental photography, both
as an artist and as a graphic designer. Encounters with El Lissitzky, who
was active in Germany at the time and had already held lectures at the
Folkwang School and in the Soviet Pavilion in Zurich in the 1929 exhibition
"Russian Art," also held great meaning for Stankowski's work.
4 Silkscreens from the series "Der Werkbund," 1993
© Stankowski Stiftung, Stuttgart
Collection of the Deutsche Bank
|
Yet
even if Stankowski, like the Russian Constructivists, took pure form as
his point of departure – the square, the circle, line, surface, and color
– it already became clear in his Zurich "Design Primer" that his work lay
worlds apart from Malevich's metaphysical standpoint. While Malevich demanded
a turning towards pure art, and his Suprematism stood for an absolute and
visionary artistic position, Stankowski set about developing a theory of
practice in which the functional value was of essence: "The greatest possible
utilitarianism! Save material and energy through rigid organization! (…)
Development of things from their purpose and from the physical attributes
of things. The materials that present themselves through the purpose present
a rich abundance of contrasting forces to touch the senses. What's essential
is to master them to form a harmonious unity." For Stankowski, it wasn't
invention that stood at the onset of the design process, but rather a critical
involvement with given facts.
|
Time Protocol with Car, Photograph, 1929
© Stankowski Stiftung, Stuttgart
Collection of the Deutsche Bank
Stankowski was forced to leave Switzerland
in 1938 after his working permit was revoked; he resettled in Stuttgart,
where he was able to work as a freelance graphic designer. He became a
soldier in 1940; in 1948, he was released from war imprisonment and returned
to Stuttgart, where he set up his own studio in Killesberg in 1951. Here,
a new cultural circle arose together with Baumeister,
Bense,
Cantz,
Eiermann,
Mia
Seeger, and others. The large number of designs developed for firms
both at home and abroad in Stankowski's studio from the mid-fifties on
were based on systems and principles of order easy to remember due to their
geometric vocabulary and their clear choice of color.
"Überdruck", Silkscreen, 1989
© Stankowski Stiftung, Stuttgart
Collection of the Deutsche Bank
In the sixties, the
integral approach in the design of form and in commercial art, which concentrated
on "product families" and the reciprocal relationships between people,
society, and the business world instead of limiting itself to individual
products or services, was still a novelty. Thus, in the years following
the Second World War, Stankowski developed into a pioneer of graphic design
and Corporate Identity. Here, the artist, schooled as he was in Constructivism,
was able to make use of the involvement with serial and programmatic design
he'd already begun in the twenties. The prominent "Deutsche Bank Blue,"
which corresponds with the effect of slash and square, is only one example
for the problems Stankowski investigated: perspective and dynamics, representation
and abstraction, regularity and spontaneity.
Olympia, 1987, Silkscreen
© Stankowski Stiftung, Stuttgart
Collection of the Deutsche Bank
|
More than almost any
other designer in the Federal Republic, Stankowski made his mark on the
concepts of successful design that prevailed throughout the sixties and
seventies. From 1969 to 1972, he was the chairman of the Committee for
Visual Design for the Munich
Olympics. Together with Karl
Duschek, who joined his studio in 1972, he designed the logo for the
city of Berlin, the Munich Reinsurance Company, and firms such as IBM or
REWE. In addition, he was active in the area of environmental design and
the development of sign orientation and color directional systems in public
buildings. For Stankowski, the hope of designing the world in a human way
was tied to the functional criteria of an aesthetic design capable of conveying
order. He made no distinction here between fine and applied arts. Both
his photographic
work and his continuous involvement with painting, which he focussed
his attention on again in the seventies, attest to this.
The Photographer, Photograph, 1932
© Stankowski Stiftung, Stuttgart
Collection of the Deutsche Bank
The Stankowski
Foundation administers the estate of the artist, who died in 1998;
it contains over 50,000 negatives that give an idea of his unquenchable
visual curiosity. For years, Stankowski had accumulated his own reservoir
of contact sheets on index cards that could be referred to at any time
for his commercial design. This legacy also demonstrates his life-long
experimentation with various forms of order: seen as a whole, these motifs
form a kind of inventory of the objects of the world, from the simple can
of peas, new technological inventions, people, and cars to the flowerpot
and the bicycle.
Oliver Koerner von Gustorf
Translation:
Andrea Scrima
|
