Hartmut is founder and co-CEO of frog design, inc. In 1969, Esslinger founded frog design in his native Germany and sparked a design revolution through his unique emotional and cultural style. His work has defined the modern consumer aesthetic with such revolutionary products as Sony’s original Trinitron television, the Apple Macintosh, and Lufthansa’s brand and fleet image. In 1994, Esslinger’s frog brought its product design prowess to the virtual world and has developed digital works for clients including Adidas, Microsoft, and SAP. Other world-class clients include Acura/Honda, AT&T and its Labs, CitiCorp, Discovery Channel, Disney, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, Louis Vuitton, Motorola, Sun Microsystems, Swatch, Virgin Records, Yamaha and Zeiss— to name only a few.

Hartmut Esslinger is also Founding Professor of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, Germany, has an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Parson School of Design, University of New York, and is an Honorary Member of the Design Academy of Mexico. In 1992 Hartmut Esslinger received the Raymond Loewy Lifetime Achievement Award. Concurrent to the award was the release of the book “Hartmut Esslinger and frogdesign” (Steidl Verlag, Goettingen, 1992) and an exhibit about frog at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg, Germany. Esslinger’s work has been lauded internationally and is part of the design collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York (NY MoMA), the Smithsonian Institute, and Neue Sammlung, Munich.