Kurt Wolff (graphic designer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kurt Herbert Wolff (born March 30, 1916 in Barmen , today Wuppertal ; † August 12, 2003 in Düsseldorf ) was a German graphic designer and university professor.

life and work

The son of a businessman, a brother of the theology professor Hans Walter Wolff , attended the Barmer high school, which he left with the secondary school leaving certificate to complete an apprenticeship as a bookseller at the Emil Müller bookstore in Bremen. During this time he was shaped by lectures at the Wuppertal Church University and meetings with the Confessing Church . After labor service and serving as a soldier in the Second World War, he began to be a successful self-taught graphic artist. In doing so, he oriented himself towards Rudolf Koch , whom he never met personally. As early as 1949 he was appointed to what was then the Kaiserswerth deaconess institution to set up an artistic workshop and a publishing company. This left the management and extensive design work for the vestments. He was also active in the design of church windows, created seal designs for parishes, designed book covers and calendars, memorial stones, tombs and inscriptions. In addition, he created numerous works based on his own, free drafts. In 1957 he was appointed to the College of Graphics and Design with a focus on typography . From 1960 he was head of the department (dean) and was appointed professor in 1975 until he retired in 1981.

From 1981 on he was an ordained preacher in the Evangelical Parish of Kaiserswerth. During this time he also held morning devotions for radio broadcasters for the WDR and DLF and wrote numerous books with biographical and theological content.

At the center of his artistic work were commissioned drafts for various publishers as well as free drafts for liturgical cloths ( vestments ) and textile objects for the secular area. His unmistakable design style combined existing Christian symbolism with a new, elementary symbolic language and brought it into connection with strict graphic patterns and shapes and a distinctive color scheme. So he designed the antependia of the Friedenskirche in Bonn-Kessenich .

He coined the term “serial unique items”. These works are based on designs that are basically suitable for series production, but are individually manufactured according to size and color. The term “an organ for the eyes” coined by him was intended to emphasize the artistic significance of liturgical cloth.

Kurt Wolff was married to Hanna von Scheven. From this marriage there were five children u. a. the pastor Christian Wolff .

Fonts

  • The moment of God. The workshop for evangelical parament in the Diakoniewerk Kaiserswerth. An incomplete inventory. Writings of the archives of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland No. 14, 1998.
  • A mulberry tree for an overview: short stories and short stories. Texts about God and the world. Neukirchen-Vluyn 1980.
  • Life is you. The Psalms taken personally. 150 "one-sided" texts. Neukirchen-Vluyn 1996.
  • The long breath. The word taken at its word. Sermons and intercessory prayers Neukirchen-Vluyn 1984.
  • Not child's play. ... and other stories and texts not only at Christmas time. Neukirchen-Vluyn 1980.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wolff, Kurt Herbert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German graphic designer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Barmen
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 2003
Place of death Dusseldorf