Kunstschule Alsterdamm, one of the first new schools in Germany after WW II, established  primarily as a concentration for the training professional graphic designers, was founded in 1946 by Gerd F. Setzke, a graphic designer, in Hamburg. Its first location was on Alsterdamm Boulevard, which was later renamed Ballindamm, named after Albert Ballin, a German shipping magnate, who was the general director of the Hamburg-America Line, at times the world’s largest shipping company. The school owes its name to the location on the boulevard at the edge of the Innen-Alster. In 1955, the school moved to Ferdinandstraße.

Gerd F.G. Setzke, born 1912 in Hamburg, studied with Hugo Meier-Thur. (Meier-Thur, who taught from 1910 to 1943 at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, was killed at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp in 1943.) Setzke, after working at a printing company, worked for the publisher Broschek. From 1931 he freelanced – his clients included Volkswagen and BASF – and was, between 1941-43 a lecturer of commercial art at the Hamburg Meisterschule für Mode (college of fashion). His studio was destroyed in war. in 1946 he founded the Kunstschule Alsterdamm which became the largest private school for the graphic design in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Some published information on Gerd F.G. Setzke:
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Vollmer, 1958
• Eberhard Hölscher, ‘Atelier Setzke, commercial art’, Gebrauchsgraphik (International Advertising Art), Berlin: Phönix Illustrationsdruck und Verlag GmbH (later: ‘Gebrauchsgraphik’ Druck und Verlag GmbH), 1933-71. Published from Munich from 1950., March 1955, pp. 36-41
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Guido Dieter, ‘Kunstschule Alsterdamm Hamburg’, novum, Jan. 1979, pp. 61-5.
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E. Hölscher, ‘The Alsterdamm Art School’, Gebrauchsgraphik (International Advertising Art), Berlin: Phönix Illustrationsdruck und Verlag GmbH (later: ‘Gebrauchsgraphik’ Druck und Verlag GmbH), 1933-71. Published from Munich from 1950., June 1960, pp. 50-55

Gerd F. Setzke developed a practical training program, which he and his team of teachers Holger Hilgendorf, Dora Lühr, Max H. Mahlmann and Lilo v. d. Horst, implemented. He lead the school through his highly successful training methods to high professional recognition at home and abroad. The faculty in later years included graphic designers, draftsmen, painters and printmakers like Jan Buchholz, Lothar Böhm, Horst Busecke, Oskar Haacks, Günter G. Lange, Erwin Lindner-Bauer and Lothar Walter, as well as many others. Thanks to the highly disciplined, nearly monastic methodology with conceptual clarity, aesthetic accuracy and craftsmanship as its hallmark, numerous alumni built the reputation that the school enjoys to this day.

In the fifties, the no-nonsense curriculum was oriented towards professional requirements: design of posters, packaging, brochures, advertisements, book covers, etc., as well as the latest international developments in graphic design. The basic graphic competencies were thoroughly trained (for example, letterform construction, rendering and freehand drawing from nature). As one of its means to show its prowess, Alsterdamm enters  and wins numerous competitions at the national and international levels.

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Some of today’s highlights
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Seventy years of professional competence and training
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Maximum twenty-five students per semester in a disciplined, collegial, and dedicated atmosphere
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Comprehensive know-how of all relevant aspects in the professional field of practice.
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Focus on creativity, conceptual strength and technical competence
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Individual support and responsibility for own creative development
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New thinking, seeing and shaping the aesthetic visual competence
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Training of group work and social skills
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Understanding project tasks for increasingly independent, strategically sound problem solving
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A wide network of professional professional contacts for internships and jobs
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Inspiring mix of classic craftsmanship, creative techniques (in addition, today’s digital know-how)
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A concentrated program of museum/studio visits and lectures