Otmar Hoefer

Memories of GGL by Otmar Hoefer

In the first months of my apprenticeship as a typesetter, a lecture on typography by Günter Gerhard Lange of H. Berthold AG was to take place at what was then the Offenbach School of Applied Arts, where my father also taught typography. I asked my teacher if he could give me leave to attend the event, and he said yes. With bated breath, I sat in the auditorium with the students at the school, eager to follow GGL’s slides and remarks.

A tall man came in, slightly askew and limping, with a war injury that was clearly visible.

What stuck with me? That he spoke very quickly, like a machine gun, and that he sometimes used rather crude, sanguinary language. What I also remember, though, is his recommendation that the best way to ensure the reader’s attention was by using black on yellow – a principle that was later used by Erik Spiekermann for the identity of his FontShop.

After I had finished my studies in Stuttgart, I went to D. Stempel AG and later to Linotype, where I was responsible for a long time for the marketing of the fonts, which means that GGL and I found ourselves to be competitors.

Together with Gerd Gruhl (my counterpart at Berthold) and Bernd Möllenstädt, we met at the ATypI congresses, and DRUPA and Imprinta in Düsseldorf, and exchanged views on the trends in typography. GGL recognised that I also held the Berthold typefaces in high esteem, even if the Linotype typefaces stirred my heart to a greater extent.

In Oxford, he presented me with a green, designer wooden bow tie in recognition, because I had always worn a bow tie instead of a neck tie. I always wore it in his honour at typography events.

On the occasion of Hermann Zapf’s 80th birthday in November 1998, we organised a big celebration at the Kupferberg Terraces in Mainz. It was GGL who gave the laudatory speech, and he did this in an honourable way, to the delight of Hermann Zapf.

Since 2000, Hans Reichardt and I have been working together on the website for the unique digital type designer archive of the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach and have already created more than 13,600 entries as I write. GGL is also represented there with his fonts in a 9-page PDF.

Here is the direct link: http://www.klingspor-museum.de/KlingsporKuenstler/Schriftdesigner/Lange/GGLange.pdf

In doing this, we hope that young designers who did not know GGL will continue to become familiar with his work and his typefaces in this way.

Otmar Hoefer