Not to be overlooked, highly original

In 2000, the designer and semiotician Martin Krampen presented Otl Aicher’s 328 posters for the Ulmer Volkshochschule (vh) in a comprehensive publication. Krampen’s text about the vh’s poster displays is taken from this book.

From the beginning, advertising for the Ulmer Volkshochschule was also an economic problem. The posters on pillars in Ulm were initially put up by the city. After the currency reform of July 1948, the funds of the Adult Education Centre became scarcer and the city took over part of the advertising costs. In return, municipal employees were allowed to attend vh-courses in shorthand and typewriting free of charge. Soon afterwards, the city leased out the poster company. Negotiations were held with the new entrepreneur about the adult education centre and the municipal theatre having their own billboards. In late autumn 1950, the Ulmer Volkshochschule asked to be allowed to put up 40 of its own billboards. Without waiting for approval, the production of 40 of these boards was commissioned. In December 1950, a site visit took place with representatives of the Adult Education Centre, the Office for Public Order, the City Planning Office and the local Land Office, in which locations for 25 of the new vertical billboards were determined.

Kurt Fried, newspaper editor and city councillor and thus one of the key figures in Ulm’s cultural life, wrote in the Monthly Review of February 1951, according to the entry in his monthly diary of 10th January: “The admonishing totem poles of the vh, the new billboards we mean, are appearing in the cityscape. Not to be overlooked. Highly original!” The city’s economic department then agreed to the installation retrospectively with a reprimanding remark. Approval for a total of 40 poster pillars followed, and the city continued to make a monthly contribution to the cost of the poster display, which was settled with the leaseholder (protocols 1950). From then on, the vertical posters of the monthly “Thursday lectures” of about 40 x 80 cm found their permanent place under the signet of about 40 x 40 cm and at the foot of the display were two square posters of 40 x 40 cm, each for events. The previous typographic programmes of about 40 x 60 cm were placed in the middle between the portrait format and the two square posters. The result was a display with a height of approx. 2.60 m on a base of approx. 40 cm. In terms of typography, these display columns mark the definitive transition to normal typesetting.