He was born in Lyon, France, in 1904 to a British mother, Rose Calmann and a German-Jewish father, Théodore Friedlaender, who was a silk merchant.

He later worked with B. G. Teubner and with Wirth in Dresden, with Jakob Hegner in Hellerau, and for the Klingspor Type Foundry with Max Dorn.

After working with Rudolf Koch he became a typographic designer with Hartung in Hamburg and later a printer and manager with Haag-Drugulin in Leipzig with Ernst Kellner.

Due to the Nazi occupation restrictions he had to stop his professional activities and hide in the attic of his house in Wassenaar.

[3] In these years he continued to work for the Exilliteratur publishers Querido and Allert de Lange,[4] and further designed the Hadassah typeface (completed in 1958).