Philipp Stamm (1966) completed an apprenticeship as a typesetter at Meier+Cie AG in Schaffhausen (1982-1986). His employment as a text designer at DokMan AG in Zurich-Höngg marked a further technological change – from lead and phototypesetting to desktop publishing (1987-1990).
After working for four years, he felt the need to study: Typographic Design at the Basel School of Design (1990-1992) and Visual Communication at Basel Academy of Art and Design (1992-1995) – with André Gürtler, Wolfgang Weingart, and Reinhart Morscher, among others. In his type-design diploma project, he focussed on the Expansion of the Latin Alphabet for the German Language.
He then worked as a freelancer in Basel, a.o. for the GGK advertising agency and at Reinhardt Verlag for the satirical magazine Nebelspalter, before becoming self-employed (1998-2008). Together with Heidrun Osterer, he founded “feinherb”. For their book project Adrian Frutiger – Schriften. Das Gesamtwerk, he conducted numerous interviews with the Swiss type designer. And for his book Schrifttypen – Verstehen | Kombinieren, he developed a renewed and expanded font classification. At the same time, he taught (from 1996) Typographic Composition, Detailed Typography, Type Design, the History of Type and Typography, and Corporate Design at SPRI and at the Zurich Gewerbeschule – and since 2000, at the Basel Academy of Art and Design.
In terms of methodology and didactics, he is interested in eye training as well as the aspects of openness in limitation, richness in reduction, unity in diversity, and playfulness in systematics.
