Alois Senefelder
Inventor of lithography1771-1834Alois Senefelder, son of a Munich court actor, had enjoyed piano and singing lessons as a pupil before studying law in Ingolstadt. In search of a means of reproducing his own literary works, he carried out trials for years. His Vollstaendiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerey (A Complete Course of Lithography), which was published in Munich in 1818, was written to provide information about the method.
Fred Smeijers
Typography for a Dutch state newspaper*1961Fred Smeijers was born in 1961 in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. He studied at the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Arnhem before starting his design career in 1986, creating typefaces for laser printers.
Jason Smith
Corporate Design from London*1971Born in 1971 in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, Jason Smith studied calligraphy, lettering and signwriting and completed his degree as part of an illustration class at the Reigate Art College in Redhill, County Surrey, England. He initially developed logo ideas for the famous graphic designer David Quay before switching to the Wagstaffs Design agency in London, where he developed lettering for corporate brands.
Erik Spiekermann
Self-appointed Berlin “typomaniac”*1947Able to look back at a vast graphic portfolio, the designer Erik Spiekermann ranks among the most important practitioners of his craft. His fields of expertise include classical font creation and holistic design solutions - for example the signage systems for both Berlin’s public transport infrastructure and Düsseldorf International Airport.
Gerard van Swieten
Personal physician and censor1700-1772Gerard van Swieten from Leiden was called to Vienna and appointed imperial personal physician and prefect of the imperial library by Empress Maria Theresia in 1745. From 1759 on and against the bitter resistance of the Jesuits, he effected a relaxation in the censorship regulations in his capacity as head of the Studien- und Büchercensur-Hofkommission (Court Academic and Book Censorship Commission).
Walter Tiemann
Font designer, typographer, illustrator and co-founder of Janus Presse1876-1951Walter Tiemann, born in Delitzsch in 1876, began studying painting in 1894 at the Academy of Arts in Leipzig and the Applied Arts School in Dresden, and also undertook a study trip to Paris. In 1903 he became a teacher of book printing, illustration and pure and applied graphic arts at the Royal Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Printing in Leipzig.
Johann Georg Tinius
Clergyman, bibliomaniac, murderer1764-1846In 1813 a wealthy Leipzig widow was robbed and murdered. The motive: money to buy books. The murder weapon: a hammer for adjusting bookcases.
Jan Tschichold
Theoretician of the Elementary typography1902-1974Born in Leipzig as the son of a signwriter, Jan Tschichold initially trained as a teacher of calligraphy. He ended his apprenticeship after three years, however, before going on to study at the Akademie für grafische Künste (Academy of Graphic Arts) in Leipzig, where he learned engraving techniques (including wood engraving), chalcography, woodcut and bookbinding.
Johann Friedrich Unger
Editions of literary classics in the Antiqua typeface1753-1804After following in the professional footsteps of his father and completing apprenticeships as a woodcutter and book printer, Johann Friedrich Unger opened his own printing house in Berlin in 1870. After the closure of the Luther type foundry in Frankfurt am Main, Unger took over that company’s complete typographical portfolio.
Dorothea Viehmann
The fairytale woman1755-1815The second volume of the Brothers Grimm work Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) was published in 1815 with a foreword that included a tribute to the storytelling of a poor woman from Hesse. Dorothea Viehmann contributed over 40 stories to the most famous collection of fairytales in existence. The idea that she was a poor woman with a humble background has since been debunked as a marketing strategy by the Brothers Grimm.
