Born in Ulm. Shaped by architecture and design.
The Gothic forms of Ulm Minster and the clarity of the HfG belong to different eras of the same city. Both offer a distinctive perspective on form: its effect, its structure and the care with which it is created.
Ulm is also where chincheckgermany began. The Minster’s architecture inspired the brand emblem. The city’s design history offers further inspiration for our own connection between expression and use.
Ulm, 1890–1900 · Historical photochrom print · Library of Congress · Source
Our brand emblem has its origins in the Gothic architecture of Ulm Minster.
The Gothic forms of Ulm Minster inspired the chincheckgermany brand emblem. This discovery led to a distinctive form that connects the brand’s origins with its design today.
On the Magvely 50, the motif takes on a new context. An architectural inspiration becomes part of an object that accompanies you on your travels. The connection to Ulm remains visible beyond the city.
South portal of Ulm Minster, 2010 · Photo Txllxt TxllxT · Source · CC BY-SA 4.0
Our logo reference: the overlaid detail photograph inspired the chincheckgermany Gotik logo.
From the citizens’ city to the Minster. A story spanning generations.
Ulm is first mentioned in a surviving document from 854. The settlement around a royal palace developed into a city of merchants and craftspeople. As a Free Imperial City, it gained political independence; the Great Oath Charter of 1397 established how citizens would participate in the city’s government.
The Minster also grew out of the commitment of Ulm’s citizens. In 1377, they laid the foundation stone and made its construction possible through contributions and donations. The main tower was completed in 1890. More than five centuries separate these dates, shaped by the work of many generations.
Ulm, Matthäus Merian, 1643. Overlaid: Minster, 1854 · Photo Jakob Friedrich Radl. Historical images in the public domain. · Source
Albert Einstein. His life began in Ulm.
Albert Einstein was born at Bahnhofstraße 20 in Ulm on 14 March 1879. In June 1880, his family moved to Munich. His scientific work later took shape elsewhere; Ulm remained the city where his story began.
For chincheckgermany, the inspiration lies in a willingness to question familiar ideas. A design also begins with questions: What form makes sense? How is an object used? And where can an established solution be developed further?
Albert Einstein, 1921 · Photo Herman S. Mishkin. Overlaid: Ulm birth register, 1879 · Ulm City Archive. · Source
Berblinger and the attempt to fly across the Danube.
Born in Ulm in 1770, Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger was a tailor with an interest in mechanics and technical inventions. His attempt to fly across the Danube failed in 1811. Today, the city remembers him as an aviation pioneer.
His story offers another perspective on Ulm: a place where an unusual idea became a practical experiment. This willingness to experiment is also part of developing a product. Between the first sketch and the finished form lie decisions, trials and revisions.
Historical copper engraving, 19th century · Ulm City Archive.
The HfG Ulm brought together design, knowledge and responsibility.
In 1953, Inge Aicher-Scholl, Otl Aicher and Max Bill founded the Ulm School of Design, or HfG. Its establishment was linked to a desire to help shape a democratic society after National Socialism.
Until 1968, the HfG combined practical design with scientific methods. Products, buildings and visual communication were considered in relation to how they were made, used and understood in society. This comprehensive view of design inspires chincheckgermany: material, proportion and function should together define the character of a design.
HfG exterior, 1955 · Hans G. Conrad / René Spitz · Source · CC BY-SA 3.0
Overlaid: Tomás Maldonado with students in the foundation course, 1955 · Photo Ernst Hahn · © HfG-Archiv / Museum Ulm · Source
Otl Aicher. A visual language understood across borders.
Born in Ulm in 1922, Otl Aicher shaped visual communication at the HfG. With his development group, he worked on the visual identities of Braun and Lufthansa. For the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, he and his team created a visual language whose pictograms became internationally recognised.
His work shows how individual images become a coherent identity. For a brand, this presents a particular task: bringing its emblem, products and language into harmony so that its character remains recognisable in every detail.
Otl Aicher in front of his Olympic pictograms. Overlaid: Otl Aicher teaching students, 1959 · Source
From the HfG to Braun. From Braun to Apple’s approach to design.
The connection between Ulm and Apple runs through Braun. At the HfG, Hans Gugelot helped shape the company’s product development. In 1956, he and Dieter Rams designed the SK 4, the radio and record player known as “Snow White’s Coffin”.
Jony Ive, Apple’s long-serving head of design, describes Rams’ design principles as an influence on his own thinking. The calculator app on the first iPhone is a concrete example: Ive explains it as a deliberate tribute to the Braun calculators designed by Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs.
Across different products, one idea carries through: form, material and operation belong together. With a bag, this relationship is immediately tangible when opening it, carrying it or touching its surface.
Braun SK 4, designed in 1956 · existing image selection. Portraits: Hans Gugelot, 1962 · Photo Wolfgang Siol · © HfG-Archiv / Museum Ulm · Source; Dieter Rams, 1953 · Dieter and Ingeborg Rams Foundation · Source.
The Magvely 50 brings its origins into a form of its own.
The Minster’s Gothic architecture provided the starting point for the brand emblem. Ulm’s design history offers a perspective on the relationship between form and function. These influences meet in the Magvely 50, a design with a character of its own.
Its design leaves room for personal experiences. Only You expresses this openness: you decide where the bag goes, the encounters it accompanies and the memories it holds.
Our brand emblem comes from Ulm. Its journey begins with you.
What began in my hometown can accompany you far beyond it. In the Magvely 50, it becomes a form you can carry with you, and an object made personal by your experiences.