Bertram Schmidt-Friderichs, born in 1959, is a publisher, printer and typographer. Over the last 20 years, he and his wife Karin have built Verlag Hermann Schmidt into the leading trade publishing house for typography, graphic design and other creative sectors. He caught the type bug early on in his father’s printing house, trained as a (hot metal) typesetter, studied art history and became a printing engineer.

Since 1986, he has been publishing books about fonts, typography, advertising and design, and living his passion for beautiful print books – with many of them over the years recognised with national and international awards. The house continually pushes the boundaries with new materials, techniques and printing processes under the banner “printed in Germany with love”.

His enthusiasm for fonts, typography and beautiful books is palpable in his lectures and presentations. He is a founding member of the Forum Typografie and a member of ATypl and the ADC. For the last 20 years, he has been German liaison chairman of the Type Directors Club of New York, where he currently serves as a member of the board of directors.

His dream is for typography to become part of the curriculum in every school.