The story
Gestalten was established by three friends: Robert Klanten, Markus Hollmann-Loges and Andreas Peyerl, who all moved to Berlin in the early 1990s. They rapidly came into contact with the Berlin techno and rave scene, initially designing flyers, posters and record covers for music labels and events such as the Love Parade. In 1994, they conceived a book about techno-art, documenting the visual aspects of technoculture.
In order to gauge the market interest, they started to produce order cards, to be distributed through techno magazines. They received over 1000 orders, through which they were able to obtain a loan, which facilitated the production and release of their first book, The Localizer 1.0. This led to the foundation of Die Gestalten publishing house in 1995. The name was later changed to gestalten. The word means to shape, or to create in German.
Gestalten has been led solely by Robert Klanten since the departure of his co-founders Markus Hollmann-Loges and Andreas Peyerl in 2008. The company remains independent, with investor MairDumont and Klanten holding 50% of the shares each.
From Wikipedia’s article on Gestalten, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4