Gert Wiescher was born in 1944 in the Swabian Kochertal region. After completing his schooling he travelled to Paris where he made a living as a freelance artist. From 1967 to 1968 he studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin, where he came into contact with the already passionate “typomaniac” Erik Spiekermann, who in turn inspired Wiescher to take up a career in typographical design. After professional stints in Barcelona and Johannesburg, Wiescher settled in Munich in 1976. There he worked as artistic director for a series of advertising agencies. From 1982 onwards he continued to create typefaces and graphics on a freelance basis. Since 2002 he has focused his efforts primarily on font design. In 2011 he began creating pictures composed of typeface characters, an artistic side project he calls “GlyphArt”.

By the end of 2011, Wiescher had, by his own accounts, designed more than 260 typeface families including Egyptia, Tati, Dalia and Red Tape. Over the course of his career he has worked for companies such as Peugeot, IKEA, Apple and Microsoft. Alongside his involvement in a range of other publications, Wiescher has published the typographical handbooks Schriftdesign (1992) and Blitzkurs in Typographie (1994).