Life of Signs – Wolfgang Schmidt's Design Legacy as the Subject of Doctoral Research

The graphic designer Wolfgang Schmidt (1929–1995) developed a distinctive body of work that combined visual communication, systematic thinking, and cultural engagement. Working across posters, exhibitions, publications, and pictographic systems, he understood graphic design not simply as the creation of individual artefacts, but as an ongoing process of collecting, organising, and transforming signs. His work occupies a unique position within post-war German graphic design, linking functional communication with conceptual and experimental approaches.

Following the return of Schmidt’s personal archive to the hfg Offenbach, this extensive collection is being examined comprehensively for the first time. The archive includes sketches, card indexes, correspondence, manuscripts, printed matter, and working documents that document not only completed projects but also the evolution of Schmidt’s design thinking and methodology.

The archive forms the basis of Maxim Weirich’s doctoral research at the Department of Design. His dissertation investigates Schmidt’s oeuvre through archival research, design history and practice-based methods, asking how design knowledge emerges through processes of ordering, classification and the continuous development of visual systems. Rather than treating the archive as a static repository, the project understands it as a dynamic network that reveals the relationships between ideas, experiments and design outcomes.

A central part of the research is the systematic digitisation and scholarly indexing of the archive, making previously hidden connections visible while establishing a foundation for future research and public access. By reconstructing Schmidt’s methods of working with signs, seriality and visual structures, the project contributes to a deeper understanding of his practice, while at the same time to broader discussions on graphic design as a form of knowledge production.

The project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Tom Bieling, Prof. Adrian Nießler and Prof. Catrin Altenbrandt.