Niels Hartmann

Niels Hartmann
Born	(1932-04-09)9 April 1932 Gentofte, Hovedstade, Denmark
Died	1978(1978-00-00) (aged 45–46)
Education	Kunsthåndværkerskolen
Occupation	Graphic designer
Years active	1950–1978

Niels Hartzack Hartmann (9 April 1932–1978) was a Danish graphic designer and art director. He worked in advertising in Denmark and Sweden and was known for his symbol and typography designs. During the late 1960s and 1970s he created packaging and print material for the LEGO Group, and is sometimes credited with co-designing the 1973 LEGO logo. He is one of around 500 artists to have been a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale.

Biography

Niels Hartmann was born on 9 April 1932 in the Hellerup district of Gentofte Municipality, Denmark. He was the third child of Svend Hartzack Hartmann and Elna Tilling, and was considered to be part of the seventh generation of the Danish-Norwegian Hartmann family. He was educated in art at the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen from 1946–1950. In 1950 he established the studio Hartmann Design with his older brother Jørgen Hartzack, who was also a graphic designer. Niels moved his work to Helsingborg in Skåne, Sweden in 1958, to the Danish island Als in 1959, and to Malmö in Skåne from 1960–1963. From 1963–1964 he worked with advertiser Thomas Bergsøe, then with Morten Peetz-Schou from 1965–1966; he was also a freelancer at the Danish Agricultural Marketing Board's advertising department.

Starting in the late 1960s Hartmann was involved in Dot Zero Designgroup, a studio co-owned by the LEGO Group. In 1967 he became a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI); he was the first Danish member who became an established designer after World War II. That same year he opened his own studio, Niels Hartmann Industriel-grafik A/S, in the Holte district of Copenhagen, and operated it until his death in 1978. Some of the graphic artists employed at Hartmann's studio included Folkmar Roll (1967–1969), Rolf Lagersson (1967–1970), Flemming Nielsen (1969, 1971–1978), and Dirk Baillie (1972–1978). Lagersson and Roll were involved in his work with LEGO, and both would go on to work at Dot Zero directly.

Hartman is sometimes co-credited with Rolf Lagersson for the 1972 redesign of the LEGO logo, used from 1973 until its adjustment in 1998. The Alliance Graphique Internationale website claims that Hartmann was responsible for the "modular" nature of the LEGO logo, intending it to look good used anywhere and be "almost impossible" to wrongly apply. Other sources, however, attribute the logo solely to Lagersson.

Gallery of works

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  Set 114 packaging, 1966

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  Set 332 packaging, 1967

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  Set 335 packaging, 1967

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  LEGO rail packaging, 1967

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  Set 118 "Electronic Train" packaging, 1968

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  Set 120 packaging, 1968

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  Set 720 packaging, 1969

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  Set 720 packaging (opened), 1969

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  Set 345 packaging, 1969

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  Packaging for gears and Legoland cars, 1970

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  Legoland cars packaging, 1970–1971

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  LEGO decals, 1967

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  LEGO logo (with Rolf Lagersson), 1972