19. 07. 10
by erik
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24. 05. 10
Over on the German part of this weblog you can watch a short movie and an interview as well as listen to a radio programme – all in German and all on the occasion of TypoBerlin 2010. Just click the “deutsch” button above.
by erik
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10. 05. 10
It’s been around for a while. As off today also featured on the Spiekerblog: proper typefaces instead of system fonts.
Copy is set in Espi Slab Regular, Headlines in Espi Sans Bold, Twitter Feeds in Espi Sans Regular and Bold. Espi is Edenspiekermann’s exclusive version of FF Unit and FF Unit Slab. Done with Typekit.
Marcus Scheller hacked it all together.
You can also see real type in action on the Edenspiekermann site.
by erik
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30. 04. 10
Just caught on online interview about webfonts and copied this snippet which mentions the fact that preparing fonts for the web is a lot of work.
typekit_on_fontfont
Here is the whole interview:
http://5by5.tv/bigwebshow
by erik
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06. 02. 10
This is the second part of the interview with Adrian Shaughnessy. The first part was here.
What sort of designer had you become at this point?
Well, I’m not a very good designer; I’m an OK designer. I’m OK when it comes to complex things like grids. I like maths. I like geometry. I like multiples. How things are arranged on the page. I like that because it’s all about discipline. I learnt about type through doing hot-metal typesetting. So I know that what is between the black marks is as important as the black marks themselves. With metal typesetting you have to touch it, it’s not just the return key. So that’s my discipline. I’m an art historian by trade; I’m slightly intellectual, maybe too intellectual. When it comes to visualizing things I’m too intellectual, it becomes too obvious. Neville Brody’s the exact opposite of me. We’ve worked together successfully. Neville’s a digital painter. He just throws it on the page and it looks great, but he can’t repeat it. I’m the other way round. I provide the skeleton, I make sure things don’t fall down. And he makes it look good, and I’m very happy with that.
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by erik
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16. 01. 10

Next week I have to fly to China, and I’m already dreading the 12 hours or more on the plane. I can only hope that this man won’t sit next to me. He was photographed by a Stewardess aboard a flight in the US. These days, we’re charged for every kilogram (or pounds or ounce) of extra luggage. Sometimes I long for the days at the beginning of air-travel when every passenger – including women – would be weighed. The pilot had to know the exact weight of the plane in order to guarantee lift-off. Even with my post-christmassy 164 pounds I would qualify for a bonus compared to some folks…
by erik
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12. 01. 10
Taken from the book — Studio Culture: the Secret Life of the Graphic Design Studio. This is a shortened version of an interview with Erik Spiekermann. During the 1970s Spiekermann worked as a freelance designer in London before returning to Berlin in 1979 where, with two partners, he founded MetaDesign. In 2001 he left MetaDesign and started UDN (United Designers Network), with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. Since January 2009 he has been a director of Edenspiekermann, which employs over 100 people and has offices in Berlin and Amsterdam.
Unusually among contemporary designers, Spiekermann has a sophisticated set of theories relating to the layout, structure and management of design studios. His theories have been extensively road-tested in the various creative enterprises he has founded and run during a long career.
The interview was conducted in the offices of AIG, London.
Adrian Shaughnessy: You have a vision of your perfect studio. You’ve even got a name for it — The ‘Rundbuero’ Studio (see diagram). Can you describe it?
Erik Spiekermann: Ideally it’s a round space. It’s made up of three or four concentric circles. At the centre is a reception area. This is where everybody enters. It is linked to the rest of the studio by a corridor. In the central reception area are the people who answer the telephones, do the emails and make the photocopies. It’s where all the machinery is — the printers, the espresso machine. Everybody has to go in here several times a day to pick up printouts, pick up mail, get coffee and so on. Now, the further you go from the centre the quieter it gets. People in the outer rings have windows, others don’t. The walls are maybe only shoulder height. If a secretary wants to see if I’m in the outer ring, she can get up and look across and see if I’m actually there.
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by erik
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09. 01. 10
The previous post showed that blogging from a phone still leaves a lot to be desired. But I still want to make the point that technology shapes design. In this case it created a Clarendon (ca. 15mm tall) that doesn’t exist anywhere else. Similar effects can be seen with type that was produced for other methods of reproduction, from transfer type à la Letraset to wood type made for small presses that printed labels and signs for shops.
by erik
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