Gerard Unger

Dr Gerard Unger, born in Arnhem, Netherlands in 1942. He studied graphic design, typography, and type design from 1963–67 at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. He was Professor of Typography at Leiden University, the Netherlands from 2006–2012, from which he also received his PhD in 2013. Dr Unger has worked as a freelance designer since 1972 and currently teaches as visiting professor at The University of Reading, UK, Department of Typography and Graphic Communication. He has designed stamps, coins, magazines, newspapers, books, logos, corporate identities, annual reports, and many other objects, as well as many typefaces.

Dr Unger has been awarded several Dutch and international prizes and honours, such as two honorary doctorates by the universities of Hasselt, Belgium and Tallinn, Estonia. He has written articles for the trade press, and several larger publications, such as Landscape with Letters (1989), linking the usually limited scope of type and typography with a wider cultural view. His book Terwijl je leest — While You Are Reading — has been translated into Italian, English, Spanish, German, French, Korean, and Portuguese. He lectures frequently in Holland and abroad about his own work, type design, the reading process, and related subjects.