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Erik Spiekermann

Born on May 30, 1947. Information architect, type designer (ff Meta, itc Officina, ff Info, ff Unit, LoType, Berliner Grotesk et al) and author of books and articles on type and typography. He studied history of art in Berlin, though unsuccessfully, financing his studies by running a basement printing company. He then moved with wife (Joan) and child to London where he worked as a consultant to some big design companies as well as lecturing at various establishments including the London College of Printing. With Florian Fischer and Dieter Heil he founded MetaDesign (1979). The two partners left in 1983, and in 1990 two new partners joined, Uli Mayer and Hannes Krüger. The company name was changed to MetaDesign Plus and subsequently it grew to become Germany’s largest design firm with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. Projects included corporate design programmes for Audi, Skoda, Volkswagen, Lexus, Heidelberg Printing, Berlin Transit, Duesseldorf Airport and many others.

In 1988 he started FontShop, a company for production and distribution of electronic fonts. He holds an honorary professorship at the Academy of Arts in Bremen, is board member of ATypI and the German Design Council, and Past President of the International Society of Typographic Designers. In april 2006, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena awarded him an honorary doctorate for his achievements.

In July 2000, Erik withdrew from the management of MetaDesign Berlin. In 2001 he redesigned The Economist magazine in London. His book for Adobe Press, Stop Stealing Sheep, has recently appeared in a second edition. A corporate font family for Nokia was released in 2002. In 2006, he received the German National Design Prize for the family of typefaces he designed (with Christian Schwartz) for Deutsche Bahn (German railways).

Other than that, he doesn’t remember how many prizes he’s won and certainly has no display of awards or medals in the office. The reason isn’t so much modesty but a chaotic archive. He does not have any work in any museums and would actually not expect his work there, as he solves problems for clients instead of making art for posterity. The signage systems Erik and his colleagues have designed over the past 20 years serve as a more effective gallery of work.

He is the co-author (along with E.M Ginger) of Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works, one of the most entertaining and popular books among graphic designers, type designers and typographers, which overtook Neville Brody’s record for bestselling graphic design book of all time, having sold over 150,000 copies. He has been one of the editors of the FontBook since 1991 and co-editor (with Jan Middendorp) of Made With FontFonts, a book about 15 years of work from the FontFont library, which was published at the end of 2006.

Erik splits his time between his homes in Berlin, London and San Francisco. His new company, Spiekermann Partners, has offices in those three cities.