Maag began his career with an apprenticeship as a typesetter for the Tages Anzeiger, Switzerland's largest daily paper.
This led him to study Visual Communication at Basel School of Design.
During a work experience placement at Stempel, he met Rene Kerfante who later moved to Monotype and then invited him to join him there.
[2] He is renowned in the typographic community for his strong dislike of the typeface Helvetica.
[3] Maag has designed several typefaces as part of his design work at Dalton Maag: Aktiv Grotesk, Co, Dedica, Elevon, InterFace, Plume, Royalty, Stroudley and Viato.