Erna Hitzberger was a textile designer and professor. She was head of the Department of Textile Design at the private School of Fashion and Textile in Berlin. Between 1948 and 1971 she taught textile design at the Folkwang School of Design in Essen where she developed an “alphabet of form” to make students understand possible compositions of forms. She met Otto and his wife Carmen in 1973 at the International Trade Fair of Fabrics and Textiles in Frankfurt, which marked the beginning of their collaboration.