This is the address delivered by Gerard Unger at the acceptance ceremony of the Professorship in Typographic Design, sponsored by the Dr.P.A. Tiele-Stichting, at the University of Leiden (NL) on March 16, 2007.
Gerard Unger was born at Arnhem, Netherlands, 1942. He studied graphic design, typography and type design from 1963–’67 at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. He teaches as visiting Professor at The University of Reading, UK, Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, has taught at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam and since September 2006 he is Professor of Typography at the University of Leiden. A freelance designer since 1975 he has designed stamps, coins, magazines, newspapers, books, logos, corporate identities, and annual reports but he is best known for his typefaces, several of which have become internationally famous and extensively used. His typefaces include Hollander (1983), Flora (1984), Swift (1984-86), Swift 2.0 (1996), Amerigo (1986), Argo (1991), Gulliver (1993), Paradox (1998), Coranto (1999), the new sans serif Vesta (2001) and Capitolium News (2006).
In 1984 he was awarded the H.N.Werkman-prize for all his typographic work, for digital type designs in particular and for the way he reconciled technology and typographic culture. In 1988 he won the Gravisie-prize for the concept of his typeface Swift, and in 1991 he was awarded the international Maurits Enschedé-prize for all his type designs.