Emil Ruder (1914–1970) was a Swiss typographer, teacher and author. Having finished his apprenticeship as a typesetter in Zurich in 1933, Ruder spent a year in Paris before attending the Schule für Gestaltung Zürich where he studied type composition, letterpress printing, lettering, and book-desig. He was appointed full-time teacher of typography at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel in 1942 and five years later became the school's head of the Apprentices in Applied Arts department. Ruder initiated the specialized class for letterpress printing and became a very influential and prominent educator. He was head of the Basel group of the SWB (Schweizerischer Werkbund) from 1948 onwards and design consultant to the Swiss Post Office's stamps department from 1961. He was co-founder of the International Center for the Typographic Arts (ICTA) in New York in 1962, and director of the Schule für Gestaltung Basel from 1965. In 1968, Ruder initiated the international Advanced Program for Graphic Design, together with Armin Hofmann.

Helmut Schmid (1942–2018), a graphic and type designer, author and teacher was one of the most renowned typographers of the 20th century. Born in Ferlach, Austria, as a German citizen, he was trained as a typesetter at Burger-Druck in Weil am Rhein, Germany. From 1960–62, Schmid attended typography classes at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel. After a brief stint at Ernst Roch in Montreal, Ruder went to Vancouver before moving to Osaka in June 1966 to work for Nippon International Agency. In 1971, he returned to Europe and worked at ARE agency designing publicity material for BPA (Press Office of the German Government), for the German Social Democratic Party and the German chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt. In 1977, Ruder returned to Japan to work at NIA, designing for Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. Schmid has written numerous essays on typography for international magazines including Typografische Monatsblätter, Idea, baseline, Grafisk Revy, and Novum.