I've adored the works of Anton Stankowski since I first saw his geometric paintings in the Dictionary of Graphic Design (required reading for my first design study). I had absolutely no idea what his work was supposed to mean but I knew somewhere in my heart what it meant as it excited me beyond belief and made me re-evaluate the way I thought about virtually everything... a form of having my mind revamped somehow.

Stankowski was a German graphic designer, photographer, and classically trained painter. Clearly inspired by the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements, he developed a Theory of Design and was a pioneer of Constructive Graphic Art. Typical Stankowski designs attempt to illustrate processes or behaviours rather than objects. Such experiments resulted in the use of fractal-like structures long before their popularisation. He advocated graphic design as a field of pictorial creation that requires collaboration with free artists and scientists and is probably best known for the Deutsche Bank logotype design (shown above in development).

I have a deep love of his geometric design works, the typographic quality of his work, the value he put in negative space, and, obviously, his use of colour. His influence can quite clearly be seen in the works of Peter Saville and Malcolm Garrett, which may well prove to be his ultimate legacy.