Emil Ruder completed his apprenticeship as a typesetter between 1929 and 1933. In 1938 and 1939, he spent time studying in Paris, and in 1941 and 1942, he attended typesetting and book printing courses at the “Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich” under Alfred Willimann and Walter Käch. During this time, Ruder studied the principles of the Bauhaus and Jan Tschichold's New Typography. In 1942, he himself became a teacher at the “Allgemeine Gewerbeschule” in Basel.

Ruder was the author and editor of the specialist magazine “Typografische Monatsblätter”, where he became a representative of modernism in 1946.

In 1947, he was appointed head of the department for arts and crafts apprentices. As part of this, he initiated the day classes for book printing and further training in typographic design. Ruder worked there together with Armin Hofmann. In the mid-1950s, their teaching gained international recognition, which resulted in long waiting lists for their courses. Together, they developed a program based on the principles of objectivity in design.

Emil Ruder encouraged a few selected students to take an interest in the mathematics of visual communication, thereby founding the Swiss Design movement. For Ruder, precision, proportion, and legibility were the most important aspects of type design.

“Typography has one plain duty before it, and that is to convey information in writing.”’

Ruder even influenced today's web design with his asymmetrical compositions and use of grids.

In the following years, Ruder held leading positions at the Swiss Werkbund and was a member of the “Die gute Form” jury at the Basel design fair in 1956.

In 1957 and 1959, he wrote a series of four articles entitled “Wesentliches” (Fundamentals): “The Plane”, “The Line”, “The Word”, and “Rhythm” for the magazine “Typografische Monatsblätter”. These formed the basis of his thinking, which he summarized in 1967 in his design theory book “Typografie”.

Emil Ruder became the Swiss national representative of the “Association Typographique Internationale” in 1959, was a member of the Swiss Federal Commission for Applied Arts from 1961, and co-founded the “International Center for the Typographic Arts” in New York in 1962.

From 1965 until his death, he was director of the General School of Applied Arts and the Basel Museum of Applied Arts.

Ruder made a significant contribution to the reputation of Swiss typography by developing a comprehensive and coherent vocabulary of modern typography from his knowledge of the typographic avant-garde of the pre-war period and the typesetting and printing techniques that had advanced since then. Through his combination of theory and practice, he is considered one of the most influential mediators of typography of the 20th century. (kl)