After early contact with art and literature, he studied law from 1910 to 1915 in Bonn, Kiel, Jena and Vienna.
In 1922 Mardersteig moved to Montagnola di Lugano in Switzerland, founded a hand press, the Officina Bodoni, and began producing books.
Mardersteig quickly developed a reputation for very fine typographical work, and for his scholarly approach to book design and production.
He was also involved with other twentieth-century type revivals, and was instrumental in designing Fontana for Collins Cleartype of Glasgow in the 1930s.
The Bodleian Library at Oxford holds a particularly rich collection, based partly on books and ephemera acquired from the typographical scholar John Ryder.