Ernst beggar

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Ernst Bettler is a fictional graphic designer from Switzerland . It was invented by Christopher Wilson in 2000. In an article in Dot Dot Dot magazine , "Ernst Bettler" was first made public in connection with the following (invented) event: According to the article, Ernst Bettler received Pfäfferli + from the Swiss pharmaceutical company in 1950 Huber (P + H) received the order to design posters. However, he was aware that the company was involved in experiments in National Socialist concentration camps . Nevertheless, Bettler accepted the assignment, but with the intention of harming the company with his work. He designed four posters. They advertised P + H drugs such as "Contrazipan". The article also states that the posters also contained abstract compositions that could be interpreted as capital letters. Every poster had such a letter. If the posters were hung up next to each other, the word “N – A – Z – I” resulted. A few weeks after the posters were published, the P + H company is said to have been ruined.

After the publication, there were no doubts at first; rather, the magazine Adbusters celebrated the work in an issue from 2001 as “one of the greatest design interventions on record”. The graphic design textbook Problem Solved by Michael Johnson from 2002 praised Ernst Bettler as one of the fathers of culture jamming .

The article was first discovered as a newspaper duck by Andy Crewdson in 2002 . This was followed by an unveiling in Eye magazine in February 2003 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rick Poynor: The "Ernst Beggar Problem" . In: Eye of October 2, 2003 (accessed December 6, 2009)

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