His name known only to specialists, his works, anyone who has lived in the GDR knows. Born in Dresden and grew up in Freital, worked Axel Bertram after studying at the art College in Berlin-Weißensee since 1960 as a freelance graphic designer. From 1977 to 1992 he taught at the same time, as a Professor of writing and use of graphic Design at the Berlin University of the arts.
Bertram, a multi-talent like few others, was in all fields of graphic design. He has designed numerous books and posters, and designed the Layout of the legendary magazine “Sibylle” and “weekly post”. He designed the circulation coins and commemorative coins, for example, the famous 20-Pfennig piece, and the Five-Mark coin from the GDR, but also numerous stamps go back to the busy and versatile Designer.
Bertram put no value on a distinctive handwriting. He saw himself rather as a servant of the reader, viewer or user, and sought always for the perfect solution of a concrete task. With a Tradition of trained awareness of Form and the self-understanding of an artist who works not for the Museum, but for everyday life, he took more than five decades, every opportunity to try New things.
The graphic designer Axel Bertram died on Saturday after a long illness in Berlin.atFotoMhias Bertram:
“I grew up with what he has,” says Mark Lehmstedt, in whose eponymous publishing house in Leipzig, a tape about the complete works of Axel Bertram appeared. Who had become in the GDR large, “‘ve lived in Bertrams graphical world”. The field was large, in addition to coins and stamps, the design of fiction and magazines belonged to this group, as, for example, the Logo of the Metropol theatre. “And he reflects on his work wisely,” says Lehmstedt. In the magazine “Sibylle” Bertram wrote regularly very subtle about the Aesthetics of everyday life. “He was never the big man to the Motto of My handwriting you need to recognize! His question was rather: What must I do so that I behind the product get out?“ The user he had to keep his job.
So, as he developed from 1982 on, the screen font “videtur” for the GDR television, because he had found that the recipient on the Monitor reads differently than in a book. “This is a Problem no one had thought of before,” says Lehmstedt.
On Saturday, Axel Bertram, the versatile and influential graphic artists of the GDR, rich, shortly before his 83rd birthday.Birthday after a long illness in Berlin died. (Tsp)
