Hans Eduard Meier

When I was studying at the Atelier national de création typographique (ANCT) in Paris in the mid 1990s, our hero was Hans Eduard Meier, the creator of Syntax. My friends and I admired his sensitive historical research and the original approach that led him to the development not only of novel type forms, but subsequently to a better definition of the humanist sans serif category in type design. I find his work underrepresented in histories of type design today, so when I saw Roxane Jubert’s article on Meier in Etapes Graphiques in 2000, I asked for permission to republish the article online. Roxane, my former classmate at ANCT, happily obliged.

Ten years later, Spanish publisher Campgràfic decided to publish Meier's book under the title La Evolución de la Letra, (original edition: Die Schriftentwicklung / The Development of Writing / Le Développement de l’Ecriture, 1959).  Roxane wrote the introduction for the book, and updated her Etapes Graphiques article. I asked Roxane to add illustrations and captions to the text, and commissioned an English translation. We are now happy to offer online illustrated articles in English, French and Spanish.

— Hans Eduard Meier, a life dedicated to letter design
— Hans Eduard Meier, une vie dédiée aux caractères
— Hans Eduard Meier, una vida dedicada a los caracteres

Special thanks to Hans Eduard Meier for allowing us to reproduce his visual material, Roxane Jubert for extensive work on the online version of the text, Parry Jubert for the English translation, Carlos García Aranda for the Spanish translation, and Gustavo Ferreira for help with online presentation of the articles.