Nearly a quarter of a century after the end of National Socialism, Otl Aicher was commissioned to design the "cheerful" 1972 Munich Olympic Games. He approached his work systematically and scientifically, freeing visual communication from nationalistic pathos and reducing it, in the spirit of the Bauhaus, to its essentials: practicality. The manual, completed in 1967, is a surprisingly straightforward set of rules, a flexible system of colors, shapes, and typeface that allowed Aicher's team and partners to "play freely" and spared "unnecessary preparatory work and time-consuming detailed decisions."
Aicher had a comprehensive vision: everything should be designable. With the results from over 100 design areas, he succeeded in creating an extraordinary, broad-based visual impact and, moreover, setting new standards in corporate design. To this day, Munich 1972 is considered the most successful design project of all the Olympic Games.
