The German artist, architect, and designer played a major role in charting a course for design in the first decade of the twentieth century. He sought typographic reform and was an early advocate of sans-serif typography. In 1900, he set the twenty-five-page booklet Celebration of Life and Art: A Consideration of the Theater as the Highest Symbol of Culture in sans-serif type. The German typographic historian Hans Loubier believed this booklet may represent the first use of sans-serif type as running book text. His work pushed twentieth-century design toward rational geometry as an underlying system for visual organization. He introduced the concept of Gesamkultur (total design) to industry with the first comprehensive visual identification system that included graphic design, architecture, and product design.