Gerard Unger

Gerard Unger was born in Arnhem, in 1942. He studied graphic design, typography and type design from 1963 – 67 at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. He teaches as a visiting professor at the University of Reading, UK, Department of Typography and Graphic Design, as part-time faculty at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, and since September 2005 as Professor of Typography at Leiden University. In 1976 his first digital typefaces Demos and Praxis were put on the market for Dr. Ing. Rudolf Hell in Kiel, Germany. He has designed stamps, coins, magazines, newspapers, books, logos, corporate identities, annual reports, and several type designs. His typefaces include Hollander (1983), Flora (1984), Swift (1984-86) and Swift 2.0 (1998), Amerigo (1986), Argo (1991), Gulliver (1993), Paradox (1997), Coranto (1999-2000), Capitolium (1998-2000), Vesta (2001), and Capitolium News (2006). In 1984 he was awarded the H.N.Werkman prize for all his typographic work, and for the way he reconciled technology and typographic culture. He was awarded several international prizes for his type design work. He has written numerous articles linking the usually limited scope of type and typography with a much wider cultural view. In 1995 his book ‘Terwijl je leest’ —about type design and the reading process— appeared in Dutch; a second and completely revised edition with many additions and an Italian edition (Il Gioco della Lettura) were published in 2006; German and English editions will appear in 2007; a Spanish edition is to follow, probably in 2008. He lectures frequently in Holland and abroad. Further information about his work can be seen on his website www.gerardunger.com.