“Design is not a Science”: Otl Aicher’s Constitutional Putsch at the HfG Ulm and His Credo for the Social Responsibility of Designers

Rene Spitz's article, titled '"Design is not a Science": Otl Aicher's Constitutional Putsch at the HfG Ulm and His Credo for the Social Responsibility of Designers', concerns a documented turning point in the history of the Ulm School of Design (Hochschule fur Gestaltung Ulm), the influential postwar German design school. Historical accounts of this period describe growing tension in the early 1960s between design educators who wanted to ground design teaching in scientific and methodological rigor and others, including co-founder Otl Aicher, who argued this risked stripping design of its social and cultural responsibility. Spitz's title indicates the article covers Aicher's intervention in this dispute and the credo he set out for designers' social responsibility. A full copy of the article or its published abstract could not be retrieved during this review, so this description rests on the article's title and the independently documented history of the HfG Ulm rather than on the article's own text. Credits: Spitz, R. (2015). “Design is not a Science”: Otl Aicher’s Constitutional Putsch at the HfG Ulm and His Credo for the Social Responsibility of Designers. Design Issues, 31(1), 7–17.