Martin Krampen (1928 – 2015) was a German professor who specialized in the study of semiotics. He taught at the University of Göttingen. Krampen was born on March 9, 1928 in Siegen, Germany. He was raised in Wuppertal, a city in the Ruhr Valley. Krampen is the son of a Protestant pastor.
In 1953, Krampen started studying graphic design and visual communication at the Hochschule für Gestaltung. He earned a PhD from Michigan State University in 1962. He studied design and psychology while there. Krampen was a scientist who specialized in the study of visual symbols and the way plants communicate with their environment. He also became well known as the person who founded the field of phytosemiotics, which is a branch of semiotic research focused on the communication of plants. He was a magazine editor who was responsible for Zeitschrift für Semiotik.
Krampen worked as a visual semiotics and environmental perception expert who also became an accomplished artist. Over the course of his career, Krampen held positions at universities across North America and Europe teaching courses in social psychology, semiotics, and the psychology of design.
He was the University of Waterloo’s first full-time research associate, where he worked alongside professor George Soulis to study the influence of design on industry. Krampen taught visual communication at the Hochschule der Künste from 1977 until his retirement in 1993.
