Analogous and Digital

Otl Aicher was an outstanding personality in modern design. His work is anchored in a "philosophy of making" inspired e.g. by Ockham, Kant or Wittgenstein, a philosophy concerned with the prerequisites and aims, the objects and claims of design. New edition of writings on design.

"An integral component of Aicher's work is that it is anchored in a 'philosophy of making' inspired by such thinkers as Ockham, Kant or Wittgenstein, a philosophy concerned with the prerequisites and aims, the objects and claims, of design. Aicher's complete theoretical and practical writings on design (which include all other aspects of visual creativity, such as architecture) are available with this new edition of the classic work. If Aicher prefers the analogous and concrete to the digital and abstract he does it with a philosophical intention. He relativizes the role of pure reason. He criticizes the rationality of Modernism as a result of the dominance of purely abstract thinking. Anyone who prefers the abstract to the concrete does not only misunderstand the mutual dependence of concept and view. In Aicher's judgement he is also creating a false hierarchy, a rank order that is culturally fatal. Things that are digital and abstract are not greater, higher and more important than things that are analogous and concrete."—Wilhelm Vossenkuhl