Albert Pinggera comes from Southern Tyrol, the German-speaking region in northern Italy. Realizing that the letters interested him more than the medium, he apprenticed to the typesetting and graphic design department of a newspaper in Bolzano. In 1993 he went to Munich where he worked with Gert Wiescher, and a year later he moved on to MetaDesign in Berlin to assist Luc(as) de Groot in the type department. In 1995 Albert moved to The Hague for the postgraduate course in type design and typography at the Royal Academy of Art. After graduating cum laude in 1997 he returned to Italy, to the mountain town of St. Leonhard in Passeier, and founded the company design.buero. Clients range from local institutions to multinationals and the work is varied: custom typeface design, concept/design/production of complex book projects, designing exhibit spaces and signage systems, corporate identities, etc. From 1998–2002 Albert Pinggera taught and gave seminars on type and typography in Bolzano. In 2003 Albert Pinggera’s FF Strada was a winning entry of TDC2 2003, the Type Directors Club’s annual type design competition.
