Axel Bertram

Confident in his judgements, he also contributed articles to newspapers and magazines, though this was motivated more by a personal drive to share his enthusiasm for his ideas on design than because he aspired to any sort of career as a journalist or commentator.

[1] To paraphrase several of the tributes paid to his memory after he died (which seem to have originated with a press release issued by the Leipzig publishing business, Lehmstedt Verlag), only the specialists knew his name, but virtually every East German citizen was familiar with Bertram's work and, after the East German coinage redesign that started in 1969, carried examples of it in a purse or a pocket when leaving home.

[2][3][4][5][6] Axel Bertram was born on Dresden and grew up in Freital, a small industrial town a short distance to the south of the city.

That same year he was promoted to a full professorship in fonts and graphic design at the academy, also serving, between 1977 and 1982, as Head of Department in Commercial Art.

He now emerged rapidly as a leading member of the East German cultural establishment, and while he was never a committed proseletyser for "Soviet imperial socialism", commentators (including his own son) believe that Bertram and his professional colleagues dared to dream that the obvious "ailments" of socialism as it operated in East Germany might yet prove "curable".

[1] During and after the changes that led in 1990 to German reunification, Bertram returned to his salaried work at the Weißensee Academy, between 1989 and 1992 again serving as Ordinary (i.e. full) Professor in fonts and graphic design.

[2] Between 1961 and 1990 Bertram was, like all successful freelance workers in the sector, a member of the Berlin-based VBK (East German Visual Artists' Association).

[14] It was for "Wochenpost" that his radical (famously "computer aided") redesign incorporated, as early as 1970, a layout featuring a small margin column down on side of pages displaying articles.

[16] Much of his personal and professional legacy is preserved in Leipzig at the "Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum" (".... Museum of Books and Writing").