Otto Eckmann

Who was Otto Eckmann?

Otto Eckmann was a German painter and graphic artist. He was a prominent member of the "floral" branch of Jugendstil. He created the Eckmann typeface, which was based on Japanese calligraphy.

Otto Eckmann was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1865. He studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg and Nuremberg and at the academy in Munich. In 1894, Eckmann gave up painting in order to concentrate on applied design. He began producing graphic work for the magazines Pan in 1895 and Jugend in 1896. He also designed book covers for the publishers Cotta, Diederichs, Scherl and Seemann, as well as the logo for the publishing house S. Fischer Verlag. In 1897 he taught ornamental painting at the Unterrichtsanstalt des Königlichen Kunstgewerbemuseums in Berlin. In 1899, he designed the logo for the magazine Die Woche. From 1900 to 1902, Eckmann did graphic work for the Allgemeine Elektrizitätsgesellschaft. During this time, he designed the fonts Eckmann and Fette Eckmann, probably the most common Jugendstil fonts still in use today.

Eckmann died of the tuberculosis that had plagued him for years on 11 June 1902, at age 37 in Badenweiler, Germany.