Michael Hagemann
Michael Hagemann was born in Aurora Illinois in 1961, having no formal education in any art form other than high school art class lead Michael to study on his own. Before venturing into Typography Michael studied photography through books and workshops with Dean Collins and other well known photographers. Shortly after studying with Dean Collins in 1988 Michael began working out of his home as a commercial photographer while still keeping his day job in the family swimming pool business. The highlight of Michael's photographic career was in 1992-1993 as one of the photographers for Lamborghini Automobiles in Italia, that job ended when Chrysler sold Lamborghini later in 1993.
Upon returning home from Italia Michael developed an interest in typography and began studying and practicing type design eventually starting FontMesa type foundry in 2000 in his hometown of Naperville, IL. Michael's work is a combination of old font revivals and original works, many of his revivals now have new lowercase letters for old fonts that were originally caps only. Some of his well known fonts are Rough Riders, Saloon Girl, Home Style Fill, Main Strike, and American Pop.
[Michael Hagemann, October 2009]
