Gerard Unger (22 January 1942 – 23 November 2018) was a Dutch

graphic Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, ...

and

type designer Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below. A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...

. He studied at the

Gerrit Rietveld Academie The Gerrit Rietveld Academie, also known as Rietveld School of Art & Design and Rietveld Academy, is an art academy in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The academy was founded in 1924 and offers programs in fine arts and design. History In 1924, th ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

from 1963–67, and subsequently worked at Total Design, Prad and Joh. Enschedé. In 1975, he established himself as an independent developer. A long-time guest lecturer at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

, he mentored many modern typeface designers. He lived and worked in

Bussum Bussum () is a commuter town and former municipality in the Gooi region in the south east of the province of North Holland in the Netherlands near Hilversum. Since 2016, Bussum has been part of the new municipality of Gooise Meren. Bussum had a ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Work

Unger developed many typefaces over the years, of which several specially developed for

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sport ...

s (usually typefaces with a large x-height and large inner counters), such as

Swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT ...

Gulliver Gulliver may refer to: __NOTOC__ Arts and entertainment *Lemuel Gulliver, the protagonist of Jonathan Swift's novel ''Gulliver's Travels'' *the title character of ''Brian Gulliver's Travels'', a satirical BBC radio series *Gary Gulliver, the ti ...

, Coranto and

Vesta Vesta may refer to: Fiction and mythology * Vesta (mythology), Roman goddess of the hearth and home * Vesta (Marvel Comics), a Marvel Comics character * Sailor Vesta, a character in ''Sailor Moon'' Brands and products * Lada Vesta, a car from ...

. He also developed designs for magazines,

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in orde ...

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this phys ...

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordm ...

s and

stamps Stamp or Stamps or Stamping may refer to: Official documents and related impressions * Postage stamp, used to indicate prepayment of fees for public mail * Ration stamp, indicating the right to rationed goods * Revenue stamp, used on documents to ...

. A large number of Unger's typefaces are available from Linotype and the

Dutch Type Library Dutch Type Library is a digital font foundry based in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, established in 1990 by Frank E. Blokland. DTL designs digital fonts and develops font software. Alongside original designs such as the Documenta and Caspari famil ...

; his more recent faces are also available through the foundry Type Together. He released new work on his own website from 1995. Unger designed typefaces for the

signage systems Signage systems are visually oriented information systems, consisting of signs, maps, arrows, color-codings systems, pictograms and different typographic elements. Signage systems differ from other methods of information presentation because they ...

of both the Dutch highways (ANWB-fonts) and the

Amsterdam metro The Amsterdam Metro ( nl, Amsterdamse metro) is a rapid transit system serving Amsterdam, Netherlands, and extending to the surrounding municipalities of Diemen and Ouder-Amstel. Until 2019 it also served the municipality of Amstelveen but t ...

. His newspaper face Gulliver (1993) is familiar to millions of readers, as it is the typeface used by several European newspapers, including the ''

Stuttgarter Zeitung The ''Stuttgarter Zeitung'' ("Stuttgart newspaper") is a German language, German-language daily newspaper (except Sundays) edited in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, with a run of about 200,000 sold copies daily. History and profile It ...

''. It was formerly used by ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virg ...

'' over the course of a decade. His typeface Coranto is the typeface for ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pa ...

'' and the

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian newspaper ''

Valor Valor, valour, or valorous may mean: * Courage, a similar meaning * Virtue ethics, roughly "courage in defense of a noble cause" Entertainment * Valor (band), a Christian gospel music group * Valor Kand, a member of the band Christian Death * ' ...

''.

In addition to his work in type design, he was active in the field of education. Unger taught at the

for over 30 years, and from 1994, he was a visiting professor at the

at the Department of

Typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...

and

Graphic Communication Graphic communication as the name suggests is communication using graphic elements. These elements include symbols such as glyphs and icons, images such as drawings and photographs, and can include the passive contributions of substrate, colour an ...

. From 2006 to 2012, he was a lecturer in typography at the Department of Fine Arts of the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of L ...

. His most important publication was ''Terwijl je leest'' (1997) (in English ''While You're Reading''). It later appeared in various languages, and in 2006 it was completely revised and reprinted. In 2004, he delivered the Tiele-lecture (of the Dr. P.A. Tiele Stichting) under the title ''Veranderend lezen, lezend veranderen'' (rough translation: Transformed Reading). In September 2013, he received a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

degree on a new typeface called ''Alverata'', which he developed while researching medieval lettering.

Death

Gerard Unger died at his home in

on 23 November 2018, approximately five months after his wife's death.

Gerard Unger Scholarship

Shortly after his death, the type foundry TypeTogether, publisher of many of Unger’s typefaces, announced that their Typeface Publishing Incentive Program would be renamed the Gerard Unger Scholarship in his honor. The yearly scholarship gives a student or recent graduate the opportunity to receive feedback and mentorship, as well as a monetary grant, as they complete a typeface designed during their studies.

Awards

Unger received various awards, including the

H.N. Werkman Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman (commonly called H. N. Werkman; 29 April 1882 – 10 April 1945) was an experimental Netherlands, Dutch artist, Typography, typographer, and Printer (publisher), printer. He set up a clandestine printing house during the ...

prize (1984) the Maurits Enschedé prize (1991) and in 2009 the SOTA Typography Award. In 2008 he received an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad ho ...

from the

university of Hasselt Hasselt University ( Dutch: ''Universiteit Hasselt or UHasselt'') is a public research university with campuses in Hasselt and Diepenbeek, Belgium. It has more than 6,700 students and 1,660 academic, administrative and technical staff (2022). Th ...

, Belgium and in 2009 from Estonian Academy of Arts. In 2012 he was awarded the "Piet Zwart Lifetime Achievement Award" by the Association of Dutch Designers BNO. In 2017 he was awarded the TDC Medal by the Type Directors Club.

Typefaces designed by Unger

Demos Demos may refer to: Computing * DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system * DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR * Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems * plural for Demo (computer programming ...

(1976/2001 eue Demos2015 emos Next *

Praxis Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised *Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...

(1977/2001 eue Praxis2017 raxis Next * Hollander (1983) *

Flora Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for f ...

(1984) *

(1985/1995 eue Swift * Amerigo (1986) * Argo (1991) *

(1993) * ANWB-fonts (1997) *

Capitolium A ''Capitolium'' (Latin) was an ancient Roman temple dedicated to the Capitoline Triad of gods Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. A capitolium was built on a prominent area in many cities in Italy and the Roman provinces, particularly during the Augu ...

(1998/2011 apitolium 2 *

Paradox A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...

(1999) * Coranto (2000/2011 oranto 2 *

(2001/2011) * Big Vesta (2003/2011) * Capitolium News (2006/2011) * Capitolium Headline (2011) * Coranto Headline (2011) * Alverata (2013) * Sanserata (2016)

Literature

* Gerard Unger, ''Letters'', Uitgeverij De Buitenkant, Amsterdam, (1994) () * Gerard Unger, ''Veranderend lezen, lezend veranderen'', Walburg Pers,

Zutphen Zutphen () is a city and municipality located in the province of Gelderland, Netherlands. It lies some 30 km northeast of Arnhem, on the eastern bank of the river Ijssel at the point where it is joined by the Berkel. First mentioned in the ...

(2004) () * Gerard Unger, ''While You're Reading'',

Mark Batty Publisher Mark Batty Publisher is an American independent book-publishing company, specializing in illustrated books on the art of communication: photography, art and design, graffiti and urban art; pop culture, typography and other related topics. Histo ...

, New York, (2006) () * Gerard Unger, ''Typography as Vehicle of Science'', Uitgeverij de Buitenkant, Amsterdam (2007), (), inaugural lecture at Leiden University * Jos A.A.M. Biemans & Gerard Unger, ''Eeuwenlang letters : lettervormen in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek'', Bekking & Blitz, Amersfoort (2012) * Gerard Unger, ''Alverata : hedendaagse Europese letters met wortels in de middeleeuwen'', Uitgeverij de Buitenkant, Amsterdam (2013), (), academic dissertation at Leiden University * Gerard Unger, ''Theory of Type Design'', NAi010 Publishers, Rotterdam, (2018) ()

References

External links

*
Font Designer - Gerard UngerExclusive Interview with Gerard Unger
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unger, Gerard 1942 births 2018 deaths Dutch graphic designers Dutch typographers and type designers Gerrit Rietveld Academie alumni Leiden University faculty Gerrit Rietveld Academie faculty People from Arnhem