Bruno Maag at Shillington Manchester

Bruno Maag, type designer and founder of Dalton Maag joined us at Shillington Manchester to discuss all things type-related, from adapting to changing digital environments to his infamous hate of Helvetica—as voiced in Creative Review article, ‘The Helvetica Killer’.

Dalton Maag is responsible for some of the most used and recognised typefaces used today. They also work directly for an international client list modifying, customising and conceiving typefaces for the likes of Nokia, Amazon, Tesco, Intel, Olympian Cyclist Bradley Wiggins and most recently the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Here are a handful of soundbites we picked up from Bruno’s talk:

1. “I am passionate about typography, but want to get paid for what I do. When you use a font, buy the licence. People have spent time crafting and creating that font. Buy a licence.”
2. “In terms of quality, I believe typography today is far better than it was 30 or 40 years ago. I don’t share any other romantic view.”
3. “Remember, we are not artists. We are designers. We have a job to do.”
4. On working on the Bradley Wiggins identity: “The project was a problem for me—he is a Mod and I’m a Teddy Boy. I should have beat him up.”
5. “The Romans were the first to create branding. They had the most exquisite lettering which remained absolutely consistent when the empire traveled around Europe. This also links into why the Latin alphabet is so widely used. Geopolitics.”
6. “I can scientifically prove why Helvetica is a load of crap…”
7. “Have confidence in saying ‘I am a designer and I can add value to your business’. The business card that the CEO’s daughter did will not.”
8. “The guru for me is Adrian Frutiger. He was a genius. As a typographic system, Univers is simply perfect.”

We loved having Bruno Maag in to speak at our #shilloman campus. If you’d like to hear more from Bruno you can follow him on Twitter for regular updates.