Overview
Mountain championships, endurance races, Formula 1, Spa, Daytona, Sebring, and Le Mans after Le Mans – no matter what series, no matter what track – Porsche’s racing victories formed the bread and butter of Erich Strenger’s work. As a freelance graphic designer from 1951, he designed sales catalogs, driver’s manuals, advertisements, and many printed materials on behalf of the sports car manufacturer. But his main passion were the racing posters that he designed for Porsche between the years of 1951 and 1987. Large, colorful, and with modern typographic elements, he portrayed the glory moments of Porsche Motorsport.
Back Ground
That familiar “Bordeaux Red” shade on the cover of an old Porsche shop manual or the familiar “wide” typeface used to spell Porsche across a dealership wall; where did they come from? If forced to describe the design work of Erich Strenger, you would soon realize the challenge at hand. Bold, striking, and colorful come to mind as I look at a 1973 Porsche 917 poster. Yet another promotional piece from the same era evokes mystique and romance by showing nothing more than a red lipstick “kiss” on a white Carrera fender. Regardless of which direction Strenger took for a particular piece, the resulting reaction proved to be a home run for the thousands of Porsche enthusiasts exposed to his work, be it on a poster, an engine lid, or the latest cover of Christophorus magazine.
Having started his relationship with Porsche in 1951, Erich Strenger pioneered Porsche’s global image; one that still endures today. While there is no substitute for raw talent, the early years of his life were surrounded by circumstances that would enable him to enjoy “refined” endeavors. Strenger was born on December 1, 1922, into a wealthy family living outside Stuttgart. After finishing high school, he studied photography at a small art school before being accepted to the prestigious Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design. Unfortunately, WWII would have Strenger drafted before finishing his studies, and he served in an infantry battalion fighting in both France and Russia. After the war, Erich spent five years in prison for having served under Hitler’s regime.
Once released, Strenger enjoyed his newfound freedom by enjoying the emerging jazz scene spreading throughout Stuttgart nightclubs. In 1950, one such “night on the town” resulted in Strenger attending a beauty pageant. By coincidence, he sat next to a man named Richard von Frankenberg. Von Frankenberg had already written a biography on Ferdinand Porsche and subsequently became an employee put in charge of Public Relations. The two of them struck a friendship that evening, and Strenger was allowed to submit some designs for Porsche’s marketing efforts. Von Frankenberg was impressed and continued to solicit more designs from his new acquaintance.
A Lasting Relationship
Working out of his home studio in 1951, Strenger began a lifetime relationship with Porsche that would span over four decades. Though technically a contractor, Erich was given inside access to Porsche’s inner workings and soon earned VIP status among the racing department led by Fritz Huschke von Hanstein. While typically unable to travel with the racing team, Strenger relied on his imagination to evoke a race’s setting and atmosphere. With such importance placed on posters to convey results as quickly as possible, Strenger would often have partially finished designs ready to complete once the results were reported to him by either phone or telegraph. For example, he might sketch a Spyder taking the checkered flag but only paint the car’s number and driver’s helmet once he knew the results. It must be noted that in post-war Europe, a race might have been given some radio coverage, but without widespread TV, many found out about a team’s victory through a freshly hung poster at a dealership or repair garage.
Because Ferry Porsche preferred to use the company’s limited financial resources towards their racing and product development, costly “shotgun” type advertising common to the automobile industry was simply not an option. In addition to the aforementioned racing posters, Porsche also believed in creating first-class pamphlets for new car sales. Aside from giving their dealerships something to hand out to prospective clients, pamphlets were also distributed to the automotive press at international auto shows. Strenger’s ability to convey both performance and prestige in these handouts was critical to helping the automotive world understand the new Porsche brand.
The posters depict Porsche’s racing victories across the globe
After each important victory, the racing director commissioned a design. The posters were displayed in Porsche showrooms and workshops, soon adorned young people’s bedroom walls and, over time, became much sought-after collector’s pieces. In line with the motto “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday”, the racing posters often had to be completed under enormous time pressure. Sunday was race day, so the posters needed to be delivered hot off the press on the Monday. In these predigital times, good preparation was therefore crucial.
Erich Strenger often produced as much of the design as possible before the end of the race, agreed on the draft with Porsche, and then had to add in the victor and his racing car as soon as the result was known. If there wasn’t yet a photograph of the winning car, the photographer responsible had a long night ahead of him. The slides had to be ready for viewing by the morning so that the advertisers could select a powerful image for the new poster.
Endless creativity: a new poster for each victory
Strenger designed almost every victory from scratch. Some of the images were also used multiple times, such as an early poster from 1951. Featuring the heading “Porsche proclaims new victories”, it paid tribute to the Le Mans class victory as well as various racing wins in the USA and Morocco.
From the beginning, Strenger pursued his unmistakable, highly modern style, characterized by a timeless design language. He often incorporated a country’s colors and flags into his posters, played with shapes, colors and symbols, and always found new ways of using typography to convey messages. Strenger also drew his own motifs or headed out to photograph new Porsche models with his camera.
Strenger’s inexhaustible creativity, meticulous craftsmanship, and love of the automobile led to an extensive life’s work that has had a lasting effect on Porsche’s image around the world. He was also involved in developing the timeless Porsche logo, which is still part of the company’s corporate design to this day.
Christophorus Magazine
Together with racing driver and automotive journalist Richard von Frankenberg, who in the early 1950s began conducting public relations work for Porsche under the direction of Huschke von Hanstein, Strenger also developed and supervised the “Christophorus” customer magazine as head of graphics. Although the term may not have existed at the time, he was an expert in corporate publishing.
His love of Porsche defined his work
Erich Strenger not only internalized the brand, its values and messages, but also lived by them. He bought his first Porsche, a red 356, back in 1951. This close connection meant that the collaboration between Porsche and Strenger lasted for over three decades. In his speech marking the 30th anniversary of the cooperation with Strenger, the Member of the Executive Board for Sales and Marketing at the time, Lars R. Schmidt, remarked that “one of the main challenges when working together with a graphic designer or an agency, namely explaining what drives us and pinpointing exactly what we want – in other words, the briefing – was simply not an issue thanks to our shared love for the product.”
Above content © 2024 Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG reviewed and edited by Rex McAfee
