On light blue: typographic tribute to Brighten the Corners

by sog_leandro | May 2, 2022 | News

The designers of the British-German office Brighten the Corners, Frank Philippin and Billy Kiosoglou, have deliberately avoided a portrait image. They have little in mind with conventions and feel in agreement with the honoured, who formulated: “a graphic designer is a graphic designer, he is what he can do”. Thus their stamp is adorned with the word “graphic artist”, one of Otl Aicher’s many self-chosen professions, in addition to his name and life data. A profession with which he achieved his international breakthrough as design commissioner for the 1972 Olympic Games. The colour scheme and use of space are reminiscent of the title page of the “Guidelines and Standards for Visual Design” for the XX Olympiad and rules that Aicher developed with his team. The value of the postage stamp is currently sufficient to frank a large letter. The now obligatory 2D matrix code reduces the freely designable area of each stamp. At the same time, it makes franking by postmark practically superfluous, since scanning the stamp detects whether it has already been “used” or not. For collectors – and not only of stamps – Swiss Post also offers a multi-page remembrance sheet in its online shop to mark the 100th anniversary of Otl Aicher’s birth. At a price of 6.95 euros, it contains some photos and texts on his life and work. In addition to that two of the stamps are provided with the Berlin first-day postmark, which was also designed by Brighten the Corners. kte