Michael Baumgardt

Michael Baumgardt, born September 12th, 1966 in Berlin, Germany, is an internationally known Desktop Publishing and Web Design expert who has written over 20 books.

Biography

In 1989, Michael Baumgardt helped to launch KEYS, a keyboard and computer magazine in Germany while also working as editor for SOUND CHECK, another musician magazine by the same publisher (PPV). KEYS [1] was competing at that time with the much larger and more established German KEYBOARDS [2] magazine. Under Michael Baumgardt’s creative and editorial direction, the KEYS magazine became a trendsetter magazine regarded widely as the best magazine on modern music electronic. Among the many notable articles that KEYS featured was an interview with Oskar Sala, the German composer and inventor of the Mixtur-Trautonium, and a round table interview with the leading American manufacturers of synthesizers.

In 1991, at the age of 23, Michael Baumgardt was officially promoted to editor-in-chief of KEYS, making him one of the youngest editor-in-chiefs in Europe.

The KEYS magazines was also one of the first magazines in Germany to fully utilize Desktop Publishing. Designed by Vera Waldmann, the magazine was also one of the most stylish magazines on the market at that time, using for example neon colors on the cover years before the American Wired [3] magazine was launched. Having graduated with a design degree, Michael was actively involved in this process, creating many of the illustrations inside and on the cover. He gradually became more involved in the design and production process, creating a complete redesign of the magazine, pushing the envelope of design for special interest magazines at that time.

With this experience and know how, Michael Baumgardt left his position as editor-in-chief of KEYS and started together with Alexandra Richter an advertising agency in Munich, which, over the years, worked for many clients from the fashion, clothing and media industry, including accounts like Rebook, MAC, Premiere TV and many more. While working as a designer, Michael Baumgardt started writing for PAGE magazine, Germany’s largest Desktop Publishing magazine. He contributed many of the articles for the monthly magazine, becoming very well-known in the DTP community and establishing himself as an expert. In 1994 he also started a book publishing company for Computer Music & Electronic. The first title, KEY REPORT (written by Hans-Joachim Schaefer and Lars Wagner), was a collection of vintage and current synthesizers.

However, Michael Baumgardt left the agency and his publishing company to pursue his music. In 1991 he moved to Boston, USA, to study at Berklee College for Music [4]. He continued writing for PAGE [5] as their US correspondent, a position that he held for many years. Other magazines he wrote for include Internet World [6], Print Process [7], KONR@D, c’t [8], Mac Design and Photoshop User [9]. At that time he also started writing computer books on Desktop Publishing. In only a few years he became the most well-known and sought after author in Germany. His books were widely regarded as the best books on the subjects. At one point, three of his books were listed at the same time in the top ten best-selling computer graphic book list. Among his many titles were books on QuarkXPress (Addison-Wesley, 1998 [10]), Illustrator (Addison-Wesley, 1997 [11]), Fractal Painter (ITP, 1995), DTP kreativ!(Springer, 1996 [12]), Web Design kreativ! (Springer, 1997 [13]) and Web Design mit Photoshop 5 (Addison Wesley, 1998 [14]).

Drawn by the Internet Boom he moved in 1996 to New York and published his first book in English (Creative Web Design, Springer Publishing, 1997 [15]), a computer book on web design and HTML. Having designed all his books, Michael Baumgardt transcended the barriers of books and magazine by including interviews with the leading Web Designer and Information Architects, like Clement Mok and Marc Crumpacker (Studio Archetype).

The book that leads to his international breakthrough was “Web Design with Photoshop 5.5”. First published in Germany for Photoshop 5.0 (in 1998), it was picked up by Peachpit Press in the US for version 5.5 of Photoshop and was soon published internationally in Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and many other languages.

Today many consider Michael Baumgardt the leading expert in his field. Scott Kelby, editor-in-chief for Photoshop User magazine, and a well-known Photoshop expert, said about Web Design with Photoshop: “Probably the most comprehensive book on Web Design with Photoshop ever written, and in my opinion the best book on the subject. Every Web designer should have a copy.” In the Photoshop CS1 release (version 8) of Photoshop, Adobe included one of his tutorials in the Welcome Screen. Michael Baumgardt has been also a speaker at several of the Photoshop World Conferences [16].

In 2004 he published QuarkXPress 6 for Print and Web (Peachpit Press), which was highly praised by Shellie Hall [17], the official Xpress evangelist of Quark.

Bibliography

• 2004 Web Design mit Photoshop 7 (Addison-Wesley)
• 2002 QuarkXPress 5 (Addison-Wesley)
• 2001 Web Design mit Adobe Photoshop 6 (Addison-Wesley)
• 2000 Web Design mit Adobe Photoshop 5.5 (Addison-Wesley)
• 2000 Web Design Kreativ mit Video Tutorials auf CD (Springer)
• 2000 Adobe Illustrator 9 (Addison-Wesley)
• 1999 Web Design Kreativ (Springer)
• 1999 Adobe Illustrator 8 (Addison-Wesley)
• 1998 Web Design mit Adobe Photoshop 5 (Addison-Wesley)
• 1998 QuarkXPress 4 (Addison-Wesley)
• 1998 Creative Web Design (Springer, USA)
• 1997 Kreatives DTP m. CD-ROM (Springer)
• 1997 DTP Kreativ (Springer)
• 1997 Adobe Illustrator 7 (Addison-Wesley)
• 1994 Praxis Painter (Wolfram)
• 1994 Praxis Graphik (Wolfram)
• 1992 Key Report (Michael Baumgardt Verlag), Verleger