No one who is good just dabbles in the typographic arts. As Erik Spiekermann once said, “You don’t do type. You live it.” The problem is that just “living type” is not enough. Compromises and trade-offs are almost always necessary to have a rewarding career and life in type.

There are basically two paths a type designer can take. The most common is to make fonts for retail sales to graphic designers. While this can be artistically rewarding, it rarely pays the bills. The other path is to create custom typefaces for clients. This pays much better, but artistic expression often takes a back seat to client demands.

Bruno Maag has found a way to travel both paths.

A TYPOGRAPHER’S JOURNEY
Maag’s life in type began with a four-year apprenticeship as a typesetter at Switzerland’s largest newspaper, Tages-Anzeiger. There, he gained hands-on experience with metal type, photocomposition and the first digital typesetting systems. “I worked, earning little money but gaining the experience of working with a variety of type technologies. I knew this would be important to my future career in design,” he recalls. “At the time, however, I did not know just how important.” Following this apprenticeship, Maag furthered his education at the Basel School of Design. A one-year course in Typographic Design was accompanied by more study and eventually a degree in Visual Communications.

After graduation, Maag effectively confirmed his typographic destiny when he went to work for Monotype. One of his professors in Basel was acquainted with the president of the company, and this connection helped Maag gain an entry-level design position. It was at this time that clients had begun to approach Monotype for custom logo and typeface designs to be used on their own typesetting equipment. Since the rest of the drawing office was busy developing the Monotype type library, Maag was the logical choice to undertake these new projects. More and more commissions came from the U.S., inducing Maag to eventually transfer to Monotype’s Chicago office. His role there was to establish and manage a custom-font design group. One of his more auspicious projects was reworking the typefaces used for The New Yorker magazine when the publication switched from traditional typesetting to in-house production.

After working in Chicago for a year, Maag returned to the U.K. “It was clear to me that I wanted to work in type,” he remembers. “Unfortunately, there weren’t enough jobs to go around. My only option was to go it alone, so I founded Dalton Maag in 1991 with my wife, Liz Dalton.”

FROM LOGOS TO TYPEFACES
Dalton Maag’s first projects were relatively simple typographic logos for design agencies. It did not take many of these projects before, as Maag states, “Clients began to realize that the skill that we brought to logo design could also bring value to the agencies’ other typographic projects.”

Because of the technical expertise he had gained working at Monotype, Maag was also among the first to provide digitizing services to freelance typeface designers. “In addition to graphic design firms,” he says, “I also worked with designers like Freda Sack and David Quay, helping them convert their pencil drawings into digital fonts. Eventually the company began to provide original typefaces to design studios and advertising agencies.”

IT’S ABOUT SERVICE
Today, Dalton Maag’s business model is to partner with design agencies, helping them create better typographic solutions. When asked about this model, Maag is quick to point out that “while we are designers, we regard ourselves first and foremost as artisans. Because we are only interested in designing type and producing great logos, we represent no threat to our design agency clients.” A very important point: Dalton Maag never competes with its clients.

THE BUSINESS OF CUSTOM FONTS
Dalton Maag currently employs eight people. Most of the company’s work is custom typeface design. Their custom fonts are always the result of a tight design brief. Prior to each project, Maag explores the functionality requirements of the type with the client—addressing whether the primary purpose is display or text, if there are language requisites, whether the fonts have to work in an onscreen environment, and many additional artistic and technical details. Once the brief is defined, Maag will design a number of concept designs that are shared with the client. The chosen concept is then refined and expanded into the final deliverable.

“We encourage clients to bring us in early in the design process,” Maag says. “Early discussions allow us to inform the design agency about the opportunities of a type design. It gives us an opportunity to introduce the client to typographic expressions that they may not have thought of. We try to broaden the typographic horizon and avoid the predictable.

“Working with branding and design agencies is, of course, rewarding,” Maag notes. “We like to get paid for our work. The design remit for these projects, however, is often limited. For this reason we also design our own typefaces for retail sales.”

THE DELIGHT OF RETAIL FONTS
Maag approaches the business of designing retail fonts with much greater freedom. “If one morning I wake up and want to design a Blackletter type, I can do that,” he says. “If a script font takes my fancy, or maybe a non-Latin design, I can do that also. I can design for display or text, and no one can tell me what to do.” Maag is, however, quick to add a bit of reality to this free-form concept: “We are also fortunate at Dalton Maag in that we do not depend on retail sales for our income. When we design for retail, we do it for fun.”

While he approaches retail typeface design projects with a light heart, Maag is quite aware there are also financial ramifications. “We have to be very conscious of the time it takes to design a retail typeface family. This translates into direct cost for our company. The returns are unpredictable and, unless a design hits all the right buttons, it can take up to five years for that cost be recovered.” To ease the financial burden, Maag will often base retail designs on work that was started for a custom client. “We will look at some unused concept work for custom projects, choose a design we like, and use this as a basis to develop the new typeface.”

QUALITY & TYPE
Whether for a custom client or retail sales, all Dalton Maag typefaces undergo a detailed quality-control process. “In addition to the crafting of characters,” Maag says, “we pay a huge amount of attention to letterspacing and kerning. We believe that the space between letters is as important as the letters themselves. We have quality control checks for design, spacing and technology. Technology is as important to a successful typeface as the design. Fonts must be dependable tools that work in a wide range of environments.”

Maag’s belief is that there is one overriding requirement for a good typeface: legibility. “What good is a typeface that is difficult to read?” he asks. “There are different goals for display and text typefaces, yet functionality is the key requirement for each. Every typeface must communicate a message that is easy to read.”

SAGE ADVICE
When asked for advice to aspiring typographers, Maag’s response is, “If you want to get rich, don’t go into type design—become a lawyer, banker or accountant. Design type because you love it.” Pressed for more practical guidance, he says, “Familiarize yourself with the history of type and draw a lot—but not on the computer. Instead use pencil, brushes and gouache. Immerse yourself in the beauty of shapes.” He adds, “There is a certain element of creativity in type design but, first and foremost, it is a craft. You need to be able to work to hundredths of millimeters and to apply borderline obsession to hundreds of characters for each weight in a family. You need to be able to cope with endless repetition.”

The work is not negative or tedious to Maag. “If you love letters and want to draw type,” he says, “you will love all aspects of the process. Never again will you crave color or graphic design layouts. Instead you will marvel at the beauty of letter shapes. You will adore serifs and terminals, curves and straights. Type will be yours for life.”

www.daltonmaag.com

THE ENTIRE IDENTITY FOR THE LAND REGISTRY FOR ENGLAND & WALES IS GROUNDBREAKING. THIS GOVERNMENT INSTITUTION HAD THE COURAGE TO USE CONTEMPORARY GRAPHIC DESIGN. THE FONTS ARE AN INTEGRAL ELEMENT, VISUALLY SUPPORTING THE HEXAGONALLY STRUCTURED SYMBOL OF THE REGISTRY. THE FONT FAMILY CONSISTS OF ONE HEADLINE AND FOUR TEXT STYLES, WITH THE LATTER DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH GOVERNMENT GUIDELINES FOR ACCESSIBILITY.