Lausen & Lange is a German corporate mark attributed to graphic designer Herbert W. Kapitzki, a leading figure in mid-century functional design. Kapitzki (1925–2005) studied under Willi Baumeister at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts and worked as an independent designer in visual communications from 1953, later teaching at the Ulm School of Design (HfG Ulm) and the Berlin University of the Arts.[1]
Design and History
The Lausen & Lange mark dates from the 1960s, a period when Kapitzki was producing logos and pictograms alongside his exhibition work for the Landesgewerbeamt Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart.[2] Kapitzki developed a clear formal language modelled on constructive forerunners and advocated for functional graphic design, principles that shaped his approach to institutional signs and corporate identification.[3]
Kapitzki’s own writings on institutional signs describe them as visually closed configurations that must be understandable, informative, concise and honest to be aesthetically correct.[4]
Meaning and Symbolism
Kapitzki distinguished between signs, symbols and signets in his theoretical writing, noting that a sign becomes a symbol when assigned a value, and that a signet is a visual configuration with emblematic character indicating institutional understanding.[4]
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