Helmut Ness

Helmut Ness began his career as a type designer, typographer and corporate designer. Ness designed fonts like the corporate and information typeface Vialog (Linotype/Monotype), which is now in use, for example, by the Munich Transport Authority, the Spanish train operator Renfe and the New Jersey Transport Authority, as well as on the English highway signs in Japan.

After studying in Wiesbaden, he and two partners founded the design agency Fuenfwerken, with a focus on corporate design. Helmut Ness moved to Berlin in 2000 and focused on the development of the now well-established capital city office of Fuenfwerken Design AG.

Today, he and the Fuenfwerken team work mainly with clients like Clariant, Weber, Volkswagen or the Munich Transport Autority in the formulation and development of business design solutions aimed at the user and their needs, solutions that define the user and brand experience through product and service innovations. The company’s work has won numerous international awards. The original standard of a high design quality based on emotional drivers, which is reflected in the work, is also a personal motivation for Ness.

Helmut Ness is an international lecturer, and has given talks at, for example, the Shanghai Design Biennale, Dongdao University Beijing, TDC New York, tgm and Typo. He is a member of the Board of the International Design Center Berlin (IDZ) and serves on the Expert Panel of the International Institute for Information Design in Vienna (IIID). He is also a co-founder of the initiative gestaltBildung.
Read our interview with Helmut Ness to find out more background information on the Vialog 1450.