Thinking Erik Spiekermann. 05 30 1947

“ALL THESE LINES OF CAPITALS HAVE A SOME-WHAT NEGATIVE EFFECT ON LEGIBILITY. BUT YOU READ IT ANYWAY, DIDN’T YOU?”

Erik Spiekermann was born in Stadthagen, Germany on May 30th 1947. Spiekermann studied art history at Berlin’s Free University. Since young, he has a keen interest in entrepreneurship. He was running a hot metal printing press in his basement funding by himself. In 1972, He worked as a freelance graphic designer in London and after 7 years of experience, he established MetaDesign with two other partners.

In 1989, together with Joan Spiekermann, he established FontShop, a first mail-order distributor for digital fauns company. In 2001, Spikermann left MetaDesign and established United Designers Network (UDN) which has three other offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. In 2007 UDN changed its name to SpiekermannPartners and in 2009 It became Edenspiekermann.

I had been thinking whether I should do this post. I have no idea how Spiekermann would feel about this post. I do respect the fact that most probably he would say anything that he strongly believes in which excites me and at the same time, it scares me. I think all designers have to express what they think and never fall to the politics. He has a lot of great artworks that makes me confused which one I should post. I got most of the pictures from Edenspiekermann’s website and you can get more details from there. I do love the diagram as it is straight forward and simple. Most of the branding strategist diagram is impossible to understand. You can purchase FF Meta and FF Meta Serif here.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Spiekermann for this year awards and I hope to see more great artwork from him. Salute to Erik Spiekermann.

If you happen to be in NYC area on the 6th of June, you can probably go for TDC medal presentation at Cooper Union. He also has a workshop a day after, but his workshop is completely sold out now. You can try to be in the waiting list though.