FSB (Franz Schneider Brakel)

Franz Schneider Brakel, shortwise FSB, is a German manufacturer of door handles and door fittings. FSB’s products are sold worldwide in 50 countries and the company has approximately 600 employees.
FSB was founded in Iserlohn, Sauerland in 1881 by Franz Schneider, a producer of furniture knobs. In 1909 the company has moved to the hills of the Weser river. In Brakel, Schneider discovered a deserted factory site which became his permanent choice of location. The new accommodation resulted in the company name Franz Schneider Brakel.

The building boom in the reconstruction phase after the Second World War, resulted in a high demand for door handles. FSB changed the production of furniture knobs for the production of door handles. Although this resulted in a growth for FSB, the big breakthrough came between 1953 and 1963 when Johannes Potente developed a now familiar industrial door handle. This design is still exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In the 80’s FSB got a new director, Jurgen Braun. Together with designer Otl Aicher he embarked on a new strategy. Braun ran in a bookstore on a book about palm reading and became fascinated by the hand. Together with Aicher he developed an entirely new vision and style. Inspired by a door handle that philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had designed for his sister, they developed a new logo for FSB.
In 1985 then Aicher and Potente examined all FSB’s door handles at the gripping ability of the object. Aicher took the door handles in his hand and sketched on a blank sheet of paper a circle and wrote the words "thumb grip" next to it. After that he re-examined all the door handles and ventured that the same principle would apply for the index finger, since in the process of grasping, the hand spreads outward with the thumb and the index finger performing a kind of pincer movement. Once these first two hurdles had been taken, many more definitions emerged. Above all, volume and convexity were found on many handles. Subsequently this experiment resulted in the four principles of grasping.

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