Paperzine - News

A big passionate heart seems to beat within the identifying mark of your publishing house, the Aldus leaf – how do you manage to keep this passion alive? 

Thank you for seeing it that way. When asked questions like this, it's already one reason to keep  moving ahead with passion... 
But I'll try to explore the basis of our enthusiasm:
Bertram has been infected with the “typovirus” since his typography apprenticeship (after graduating high school, 1976, hot type). Typography has always been his passion, and he gets to live it. How many people can say that about their job? We're independent and get to make beautiful books, the most beautiful books, with the best designers without having a controller ask us why this finishing or that touch of finesse is necessary. 
We're closely connected with the creative scene. Authors become friends, clients become coaches, business partners give us ideas and, last but not least, we get to live out the dream of many couples, of work not driving us apart, but instead bringing us closer together.



Mrs. Schmidt-Friderichs, what brings a thrill to your heart?
Now, if I say “beautiful books” it's too obvious, “everything beautiful” - although it's true – strikes me as too general. Perhaps I'll start with something private: the view of the Alps right behind Basel in Olten, the plumes of vapour rising up from the mountain streams after a strong summer rain that we see on a hike, and the discovery of the seemingly insignificant through the macro lens. At first glance, it doesn't have anything to do with design, art and books, but in our work we're also delighted by big ideas that combine clarity, the courage for intelligent reduction, and function, rather than in the hippest, coolest and most highly decorated designs.


What has been the biggest challenge of your publishing history?

The biggest challenge for a publisher like Hermann Schmidt Mainz is always how to survive in a small niche, often with limited print runs, while maintaining our philosophy of quality.  After all, we and our staff have to make a living at this, passion notwithstanding. The biggest challenge consisted of two very opposing phases: for one, not growing too quickly despite rising demand during all of the New Economy hype of the late Nineties; and, on the other hand, the challenge also lay in surviving the sudden collapse in demand right after the crash. At the moment, we're going through part two of this challenge again, and we hope that, with a small and superlatively dedicated team, a solid back list, good client relations and beautiful books, we will emerge stronger from this crisis as well.



What is something you'd like to see in the young generation of designers?

Courage! At the academies I hear about fears of the future, striving for security and a lack of opportunities over and over again.  Designers don't just come up with a piece of furniture, a poster, a book; they're also designing brands, communication and thus society. If creatives no longer have any visions – visions being ideas about the world – then who will? During my first semester, a professor told us, 200 architecture students, that “we didn't stand a chance!” and I thought, “Oh, I'm going to show him”. And perhaps I was still driven by that defiance,  that “I'm going to show him”, although not in architecture, but in building up the publishing house. My wish would be for the young generation of designers to show us. I'm excited about it! 


www.typografie.de