2010 Mahendra Patel

Born in Ahmedabad, India in 1943, the typeface designer Mahendra Patel studied typography at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and the Basel School of Design. During a one-year stay in Paris in 1971, he worked in Adrian Futiger's typeface workshop. With him, he developed there the modern type design of the writing system "Devanagari". Professor Patel has been teaching and practicing typography for 39 years. For 8 out of 13 official Indian writing systems he designed the form of the characters. He contributed significantly to the development of a modern typography in India. His typeface designs are used on traffic management systems, for example on signs on motorways and airports and on maps. His fonts are also used in cell phones and other digital devices. In 2010, he was awarded the Gutenberg Prize of the City of Mainz and the International Gutenberg Society for his outstanding typographic designs and significant teaching. As a gifted teacher, he influenced generations of designers.