Bertram Schmidt-Friderichs
Bertram Schmidt-Friderichs is typographer and publisher, born 1959 and based in Mainz, Germany, hometown of Gutenberg.
He caught the typo-virus during his apprenticeship as typesetter, still in hot metal, and opened his first TDC-Show at the age of 24, studied print engineering and art history and wrote his diploma thesis on ornament and type.
His first book awarded among the best German books dates back to 1982. Since 1986, he publishes books on type and typography and lives his passion for beauty in print. Consequently, Verlag Hermann Schmidt today is internationally renowned as a leading publishing house for beautiful books on typography. Many of them had been awarded among the most beautiful books of Germany, at TDC of New York, at TDC Tokyo, iF-award, ADC medals or with red dot awards.
Since over twenty years, he is chairman of German Liaison Committee of the TDC and responsible for the presentation of the TDC Show in Germany. He managed to rise German members from around 20 to around 100 and the German entries to the competition from some dozen to constantly over 300.
He regularly succeeds to fill his audience with enthusiasm on topics around books, type and typography, holds lectures and writes articles. He is a member of ATypI, the Art Directors Club of Germany and in several juries.
His dream is to find typography one day on the curriculum of all schools.
