Erik Spiekermann

Specimens of typefaces by Erik Spiekermann.

Erik Spiekermann (born May 30, 1947 in Stadthagen, Lower Saxony) is a German typographer and designer. He is a professor at the University of the Arts Bremen.

Spiekermann studied art history at Berlin's Free University, funding himself by running a letterpress printing press in the basement of his house.

Between 1972 and 1979, he worked as a freelance graphic designer in London before returning to Berlin and founding MetaDesign with two partners.

In 1989 he and his wife, Joan Spiekermann, started FontShop, the first mail-order distributor for digital fonts. FSI FontShop International followed and now publishes the FontFont range of typefaces. MetaDesign combined clean, teutonic-looking information design and complex corporate design systems for clients like BVG (Berlin Transit), Düsseldorf Airport, Audi, Volkswagen and Heidelberg Printing, amongst others.

In 2001 Spiekermann left MetaDesign over policy disagreements and started UDN | United Designers Networks with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco.

In April 2006, the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena awarded Spiekermann an Honorary Doctorship for his contribution to design. His family of typefaces for Deutsche Bahn (German Railways), designed with Christian Schwartz, received a Gold Medal at the German Federal Design Prize in 2006, the highest such award in Germany.

As of January 2007, UDN has been renamed SpiekermannPartners, and as of January 2009 it has been renamed Edenspiekermann.

Notable works

Spiekermann has designed many commercial typefaces as well as typefaces as part of corporate design programmes.

• Berliner Grotesk (original is from 1913, digitization is from 1979)
• Lo-Type (original is from 1911/14, digitization is from 1980)
• ITC Officina Sans (1990)
• ITC Officina Serif (1990)
• FF Meta (1991–1998)
• FF Govan (2001)
• FF Info (2000)
• FF Unit (2003)
• FF Meta Serif (with Christian Schwartz and Kris Sowersby, 2007)

Spiekermann co-authored Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works. He also participated in the creation of numerous corporate identities and other works, including redesigns of the publications The Economist and Reason.

Spiekermann also appeared in the documentary Helvetica.

Awards

• 2003 – Gerrit Noordzij Prize
• 2006 – German Design Award
• 2007 – European Designers Hall of Fame
• 2007 – Honorary Royal Designer for Industry, Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce, London
• 2011 – Lifetime achievement award from German Design Prize

See also

• First Things First 2000 manifesto
• Emigre 51: First Things First, 1999. Issue 51

Further reading

• Erik Spiekermann, E. M. Ginger: Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works, Adobe Press, 2002. ISBN 0-201-70339-4
• Erik Spiekermann: ÜberSchrift, Hermann Schmidt Mainz, 2004, ISBN 3-87439-661-4
• Erik Spiekermann, Jan Middendorp, Made with FontFont, BIS Publishers, 2006, ISBN 90-6369-129-7
• Erik Spiekermann et al., FontBook, FSI Berlin, 2006
• Fay Sweet: MetaDesign: Design from the Word Up, Thames and Hudson, 1999. ISBN 0-500-01963-0
• Erik Spiekermann, M. Klein, Y. Schwemmer-Scheddin: Type and Typographers, Phaidon Press, 1991. ISBN 1-85454-848-4

External links

• Erik Spiekermann’s blog
• EdenSpiekermann
• Biography and list of Spiekermann’s typefaces on FontFont.com
• Short autobiography/CV – PDF, written in his typeface FF Meta Serif
• Erik Spiekermann appears in the documentary Helvetica
• Postage stamps designed by Erik Spiekermann
• Erik Spiekermann on the founding of FontShop – video interview
• Erik Spiekermann on DesignChat – video interview