Karl-Heinz Lange

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Karl-Heinz Lange (born  July 29, 1929 in Riesenkirch , Rosenberg i. Westpr. (Today: Obrzynowo ), † June 29, 2010 in Berlin ) was a German type designer and typographer . He is considered one of the most important font designers in the GDR .

Life

Lange was born in East Prussia in a rural area. After the expulsion he lived in the Soviet occupation zone . From 1949 to 1951, Lange studied at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg at the Institute for Applied Arts Burg Giebichenstein. From 1951 to 1955 he studied at the Leipzig College of Graphics and Book Art . He graduated with a diploma with distinction for designing a font for line fonts. From 1956 he had a research assignment to design a Korean photo typesetting.

From 1956 to 1961 he worked as a lecturer for type and commercial graphics at the college for applied arts in Magdeburg . After that he worked as an aspirant for the Academy of Graphics and Book Art in Leipzig until 1963. He then worked as a freelancer and edited a number of technical educational films as an animator. Lange was then artistic director of the Henschel Verlag Berlin from 1969 to 1976 . From 1976 to 1994 he held a teaching position at the technical college for advertising and design . From 1991 to 2006 he was a lecturer for typography at the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences .

plant

The VEB Typoart had commissioned Lange thus, its own socialist variant of the font Optima by Hermann Zapf create. The result was the Publica font, which was widely used in the GDR. For photosetting , Lange created the fonts Magna , Primus and Super Grotesk . Lange's adaptation of Arno Drescher's Super Grotesque is one of the most widely used fonts in the GDR. He created the Minima font for telephone books and instruction manuals . Together with Ole Schäfer , he updated his writings.

Awards

  • 1984: Silver medal at the Graphic Design Biennale, Brno, CSSR for the design of the PUBLICA typeface
  • 2009: Fourth place in the award for the best fonts of the year by Fontwerk for the PTL Publicala font (with Ole Schäfer )

additional

He was in close contact with the painter Egon Pukall , who also came from the same place and had a similar fate.

credentials

personal data
SURNAME Lange, Karl-Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German type designer and typographer
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Giant church
DATE OF DEATH June 29, 2010
Place of death Berlin