Rolf Garnich is an industrial designer with an engineering degree in Germany. He runs his own design agency, Dr. Garnich Design, in Esslingen near Stuttgart. In 1967, he earned a doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Stuttgart under the guidance of Max Bense. The dissertation was a contribution to the then influential theory of information aesthetics. In his case, the particular orientation of the thesis was design: a method to determine an “aesthetic measure” for vases.

The dissertation was published (in German) under the title “Construction, Design, and Aesthetics” with a lengthy subtitle trying to say exactly what its contents were: “A general mathematical method for the objective description of aesthetic conditions in the analytical process and for the generative design in the synthetical process of design objects”. (The German original: Konstruktion Design Ästhetik – Allgemeine mathematische Methode zur objektiven Beschreibung ästhetischer Zustände im analytischen Prozeß und zur generativen Gestaltung im synthetischen Prozeß von Design-Objekten)

Garnich had been a student of design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Ulm (School of Design Ulm) while Max Bill and Max Bense were still teaching there.