Otto Hupp was a German graphic designer whose predilection was mostly for heraldry, painting more than 6,000 coats of arms and writing books on the topic. In addition to painting existing coats of arms, he also created various drafts for municipalities that were applying for and awaiting new coats of arms; his most famous design was for Bavaria (nowadays Munich) which was altered and replaced with a new version after WWII.
He also designed annual calendars, with a particularly notable calendar made in the 1940s for the Klingspor publishing house in Germany. It was published as a small hard-cover booklet (with 12 city coats of arms printed in one of the fonts that Hupp himself invented) about the history of book printing.
To reiterate, his body of work is enormous: he designed more than 6,000 different heraldic figures, graphic art pieces (including labels for bottles, postage stamps, bank notes, and posters), and other artistic creations. Though Hupp was undoubtedly an artist, he himself did not claim to be one, preferring to say that he was simply using the techniques of an artist but failing to have the creativity of one. We would beg to differ – Otto Hupp not only shaped the artistic language of his time, but inspired and influenced generations.
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The calendars shown below are from Dan Alexander + Co. collection.
