Art Nouvaeu in Germany: Peter Behrens and the Corporate Type Design

Art Nouveau in Germany had its own German name, Jugendstil which means "youth style". In general the Art Nouveau is a style of art, architecture and decorative applied art. This art is known to have many kinds of floral designs, it has highly stylized, flowing curvilinear forms. Another unique feature is that typography was used, especially for covers of novels, advertisements, and exhibition posters.

In 1894 German designers began to come up with new series of magazines. The first magazine Pan was published in Berlin in 1895 to promote the Art Nouveau in Germany. Julius Meier-Graefe (1867-1935) was one of its founders. Pan covered many favourite themes of Art Nouveau during its five years.
The second magazine Jugend was published in 1896 by the publisher Georg Hirth (1841-1916). This is from where the term Jugendstil was used.

Peter Behrens was at the forefront of Jugendstil, which led him, with many other artists, into the field of Buchkunst (book art/decoration) and type design. (Burke, 1992)


Peter Behrens was German born in Hamburg, Germany on April 14, 1868. He died on February 27, 1940 (aged 71)

He was one of the leaders of architectural reform at the turn of the century and was a major designer of factories and office buildings in brick, steel and glass.
He designed the entire corporate identity (logotype, product design, publicity, etc.) and for that he is considered the first industrial designer in history.

Bibliography:

Art Nouveau - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved January 25, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau#Germany

Burke, Chris. (1992). Peter Behrens and the German Letter: Type
Design and Architectural Lettering. Retrieved January 24, 2010, from http://www.questia.com/PM.qst;jsessionid=K2tfnYT2JqwznptLJhVZs7TCQ68tN2LXjDDL2GqfpkK0689hhRZ2!657620650!-1226680035?a=o&d=96547205

Eskilson, S. (2007). Graphic Design A New History. North America: Yale University Press.