More than a truly brilliant graphic designer, Otl Aicher was a transformative thinker, photographer, typographer, ecologist, philosopher, co-founder and mentor of the renowned Hochschule fuer Gestaltung at Ulm, and teacher. On the centenary of his birth, this splendidly produced and designed book looks at every facet of his career and traces the many strands of his lasting influence. Otl Aicher is most famously known for the pictographs he designed for the 1972 summer Olympic Games in Munich. Fifty years later, his system of iconography has become a universal language, directing people to bathrooms, through subways, around airports and hospitals.

But Aicher's achievements extended far beyond the world of graphic design. Filled with illustrations, photographs, documents and archival material, and enhanced by thoughtful and personal essays from leading critics, designers, and friends, this survey takes a disciplinary approach to explore Aicher's role as one of the founding figures of visual communication. We learn about Aicher's work developing corporate brands; how he created the Rotis typeface, then built architecture incorporating the font; how he collaborated with artists and architects such as Josef Albers, Alexander Kluge, and Norman Foster; and how his founding of the Ulm School of Design reflected his passion for teaching, and for an open, free, and democratic society. Aicher's achievements are evident in nearly every public space on the globe and this definitive and timely reference work rightfully places Aicher among the pioneering geniuses of the past century.

奥托·艾舍（Otl Aicher）不仅是一位真正杰出的平面设计师，还是一位变革性的思想家、摄影师、排版师、生态学家、哲学家、知名的乌尔姆艺术学院的共同创始人和导师，以及教师。在他诞辰一百周年之际，这本制作和设计精良的书回顾了他职业生涯的方方面面，并追溯了他持久影响的许多方面。奥托·艾舍最闻名的是他为1972年慕尼黑夏季奥运会设计的象形文字。50年后，他的图标系统已经成为一种通用语言，在卫生间、地铁、机场、医院周围都能看到他的图形设计。

但艾舍的成就远远超出了平面设计的范畴。本调查报告充满了插图、照片、文件和档案材料，并由领先的评论家、设计师和朋友的个人文章来加强，它采用了一种学科的方法来探索艾舍作为视觉传播的创始人之一的作用。我们了解到艾舍在开发企业品牌方面的工作；他是如何创造出罗蒂斯字体，然后将该字体融入建筑；他是如何与艺术家和建筑师合作的，如约瑟夫·阿尔贝斯（Josef Albers）、亚历山大·克鲁格（Alexander Kluge）和诺曼·福斯特（Norman Foster）；以及他创办的乌尔姆设计学院如何反映出他对教学以及对一个开放、自由和民主社会的热情。艾舍的成就在全球几乎所有的公共空间都是显而易见的，这本权威而及时的参考书正确地将艾舍置于上个世纪的先锋天才之列。