Gert Wiescher

Wiescher died in February 2022. According to his friend Erik Spiekermann he never fully recovered from a COVID infection in 2020.

At 14 years of age Wiescher went to Paris to study fine art. He financed his stay by doing portraits on the Place du Tertre on Montmartre. In the 60s Wiescher studied graphic design at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts (Since November 2001, Berlin University of the Arts). He financed his studies by sidewalk painting and drawing portraits. While doing sidewalk paintings, he met the typeface designer Erik Spiekermann, who inspired his love of this branch of design. After two years he quit his studies and went to Barcelona where he worked at the offices of Harnden & Bombelli, for whom he designed the OECD-Pavilion of the 1970 Osaka World Expo. In 1972 he moved on to Johannesburg working as an art director at Grey and Young advertising . In 1975, he returned to Germany, working first for DFS+R-Dorland, and then for the "Herrwerth & Partner" ad agency. At Herrworth, he was involved in introducing IKEA into the German market. In 1977 he became a creative partner in the Lauenstein & Partner ad agency, creating mainly campaigns for large German retail chains. In 1982 he started his own design office, creating work for editors (Markt & Technik, Systhema and Langen-Müller-Herbig), computer companies (House of Computers, FileNet) and he worked for Apple Computers designing their publications (Apple-Age and Apple-LIVE).

Gert Wiescher (26 July 1944, in Braunsbach am Kocher – February 2022) was a German graphic artist, type designer and author. He was known for an almost complete re-design of Bodoni classic typefaces, the work of Giambattista Bodoni, the 17th-century Italian typographer. His Bodoni Classic typefaces are considered very close to the authentic version. He has also designed many new typefaces.