Heinz Traimer

When Traimer died in 2002 he left an estate of nearly 2,500 objects including more than 300 posters, now housed privately in Vienna. Traimer's work is held in museum and archive collections of the Erste Foundation, Albertina, Vienna Museum, Vienna Library, Museum of Applied Arts, Austrian National Library and the Tram Museum.

Until 1970 his work was characterized by fast simple sketches, often with humorous content, aimed at young people and the middle and working classes. Many of his colourful and narrative posters gave money saving advice. With people's growing affluence, bank poster art began to reflect lifestyle motifs using photography; a technique which Traimer did not care for.

Traimer established his own business in 1956, and, with his wife, started the silk-screen printing studio, Kahlenberg-Graphik. The Austrian Saving Banks Group became his chief customer.

In 1940, after he graduated from the Altes Real Gymnasium (grammar school) in Munich, he was drafted into the German Wehrmacht, in which he served as a radio operator on army trains until 1945. Between 1945 and 1946 he was a prisoner of war in Russia, where he contracted polio.

Heinz Traimer (1921–2002) was a German graphic designer and advertising copywriter who lived and worked in Vienna. He was the chief graphic designer for the Austrian bank Zentralsparkasse between 1955 and 1970. Among his awards was a national prize for the best advertising campaign of 1976. Traimer's posters are held in numerous Vienna collections.

Heinz Karl Wolfgang Traimer was born on 21 September 1921 in Schondorf, Bavaria. His parents Heinrich and Hilde Traimer were both teachers. His father died in 1926, after which he and his two sisters moved to Augsburg with their mother.