A few weeks ago I got carried away and wrote a spontaneous reply to a LinkedIn post about the new Johnson&Johnson logo.
Normally, I don’t really care very much about the shape of one logo or another, but that particular project reminded me of the decades I spent designing brands, the fights I had had with clients and colleagues about why we did what we did and why it mattered that we found out what our clients really needed, not simply executed what they told us to do. I suppose I am too old for this fight now, but now and again something awakens my old rebellious spirit. Of course I don’t know the full story, all the obstacles that are a reality when working for clients. But some of them are only excuses, and we need to remind ourselves that we don’t get hired to agree but to think different, even and especially when that is difficult. So here is my rant on LinkedIn that started quite a wave of reactions:
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I’m so fed up with marketing people running projects without acknowledging that we designers might have an idea or two about what communicates and what doesn’t. They’ve been told by tech guys and lazy designers that things have to be simplified to work on screens. This is knowledge from the 90s and not true anymore. Risk and guts have been replaced by bullshit “narratives” invented by people who’ve never taken a risk in their lives. This is the blandification of our world, where fun has to be taken out of the equation because it cannot be quantified. No consumer cares about a company’s internal reorganization, they want to like a brand. When all brands are beige, the beigest one will not win but will be forgotten. The enshittification* of our world is run by people who read spreadsheets in bed and look at their smartphones to tell the weather instead of sticking their heads out of the window.
Sometimes I’m glad I’m old and don’t have to take orders from gutless employed managers anymore. My best clients were those I could argue with. It wasn’t about winning or being right, it was about doing the best work.
Thank you Audi, Deutsche Bahn, BVG, Bosch, Ottobock, The Economist …
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*That word was coined by Cory Doctorow. Do follow him!
The original Akzidenz Grotesk Serie 57 in 16pt lead type in a case a p98a workshop
Of course I had seen Akzidenz Grotesk Serie 57 in the Berthold specimens and knew that the weights from 14 point onwards looked different from the smaller text weights, which had been made available for the Linotype. But I had never thought about the design process, even though 1957 was such an important year for typography: Helvetica, Univers!
We do know that the first publication of a hot metal typeface rarely marks the beginning nor the end of a years-long process of development, but there must have been a reason why Günter Gerhard Lange chose exactly this year to name the face.
The design of the text sizes for machine setting was not changed, only the widths were adapted for the Linotype system. They were available as early as 1957 and could be combined with the Akzidenz Grotesk weights for handsetting. But the spirit of the times wanted more of a system: the members of the AG family had never been coordinated, they had just come together over decades. Adrian Frutiger’s Univers, on the other hand, was designed as a system: tidy, comprehensive, modern, while Neue Haas Grotesk was not yet called Helvetica but had been planned to end the dominance of AG.
A spread from a Berthold specimen book
In 1959, AG 57 sizes from 14 to 48 point were released. GGL had caught the spirit of the times and tidied up, smoothed out and simplified the youngest child of the family. Unfortunately, it was never made into a complete family of faces. Until we discovered a mis-labelled case with AG 57 in 16, 20 and 28 point
The neue Serie57® is not a revival, but a new digital typeface. It is dedicated to Günter Gerhard Lange, my teacher and role model.
We printed a 64-page brochure describing the development process from the first digital version to the complete family which can be ordered from Alex Roth’s website here:
Ever since I led the team that designed a new passenger information system for Berlin in 1990, I’ve become a total public transportation nerd. I seek and find information about transportation information systems and their application everywhere. At the time, we were lucky enough to be presented with a historic opportunity: the two halves of the city had been divided for 30 years with two distinct transportation systems. We had to start from scratch, and as the work had to be done while passengers were using the existing services, we had to learn by doing. There were a few things we found out very quickly: the new information system had to look distinct from either of the two existing systems to avoid confusion. People had to trust the new maps, diagrams, schedules, and vehicles. A common denominator was needed. Buses, trams, underground trains and ferries all had different liveries which stemmed from a time when they had been run by separate companies. In the East, the provider was called BVB, in the West it was BVG (don’t even ask)! The tram people didn’t talk to the bus people while the underground people considered themselves to be the best and most up-to-date service. There were beige buses, orange trams, lemon-yellow trains in the East and dark-yellow ones in the West. The answer was: yellow. Vehicles were to be yellow, bus- and tram stops featured yellow posts, the letters BVG were featured in a yellow square (that became a heart shape during the pandemic).
Buses and trams in East Berlin, before the redesign of the city’s transit system
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The underground used the U in a blue rectangle as their symbol, while the other services spelled out their names: BUS and TRAM. They each got their symbol in different colors and easily distinguished shapes on signs that are dominated by a horizontal yellow stripe.
BVG design manuals:the company logo and the product logos
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It took a few years before the majority of vehicles had been repainted or ordered in the new livery. Today the BVG is yellow. The logo features rounded lettershapes in a yellow square. Berliners know that you can trust any large yellow vehicle to get them to their destinations. The blue, red, purple and green symbols point to the individual services within the system but are always subservient to the big yellow square. When they want to go somewhere, people simply say that they take the BVG – it’s the trusted friend for getting around the place. The BVG logo has become the most known and best liked symbol for Berlin, way ahead of all the attempts to design a graphic identity for the city.
Berlin buses, trams and trainscolor the city yellow
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Wherever I’ve traveled since the early 90s, I’ve taken a close look at how public transit works in cities around the world. Our diagram for Berlin’s trains was very much influenced by the iconic London Tube Map, which has become the model for most other such diagrams. When the bus and train services in London were brought together under one roof in the early 2000s, it was a no-brainer to use the famous roundel as the symbol for the whole system. Without the word Underground on it, the roundel can appear in the colours of the tube lines as well as in a neutral grey, black or white on bus stops or on printed literature. While bus services are run by several private companies, their logos are limited to appear over the driver door only, so not to confuse passengers about who actually runs the system. The London Transport roundel has become the graphic shorthand for London, beyond its application for public transit.
When you see the roundel, you know that you’re in London
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Other cities I frequently visit, like NYC or San Francisco, are far behind when it comes to public transit. They don’t even have a common fare structure, let alone coordinated passenger information for their MTA, PATH, BART or MUNI services. That is a shame, but also a chance to learn from other cities in order to attract passengers and increase ridership. The budgets will be there!
New York City and San Francisco Bay Area transit logos look like competitors rather than integrated systems
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One thing we did learn was that insufficient information is a bigger obstacle to people leaving their cars for public transit than the price of a ticket.
I was very happy when colleagues recently pointed out to me that at least one large North-American area had got its act together and emulated what makes Berlin and London so successful. I’m not familiar with politics in Greater Toronto, but I believe that like London, they have several municipal transit companies running buses, streetcars and trains across the region. Of course, as other cities have found out, passengers don’t really care about the business side of it – they just want to recognise and trust one service. So I was very impressed to see that the regional authority, Metrolinx, has taken on the task of producing a single identity and standard for public transit information.
Using a big T in a circle is an obvious and thus brilliant solution as a symbol for this one coordinated service. T for Transit, T for Together, T for Toronto! The strong letter in a circle looks like a sheltered stop itself. It has immediate authority and visitors will presume that it’s been there forever. The T is visible from far away and easily reproduced in all sizes for all media. I don’t know how many operators and city officials providers had to be brought together to agree on this simple and effective device, and experience. Experience tells me that discussions weren’t easy. I am sure egos may have been hurt and compromises were necessarily made, but the end result has made the effort worthwhile. Not only will it help the region’s residents get more from an expanding network but visitors, who tend to gravitate to Toronto, will experience a city intent on Every visitor will immediately identify Toronto’s transit system above or underground, while Toronto natives can be proud of their city for making good passenger information a priority and public transit more accessible.
The T is a great symbol for the region’s transit systems
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Metrolinx and the region’s operators will be paid back in loyalty and higher ridership once people have understood that it has become much simpler to use public transit across the city and the region. I wouldn’t be surprised if Greater Toronto was followed as a shining example by other cities in North America.
My typographic workshop hackinggutenberg needs support. After more than one year with hardly any income (no workshops!), I may have to close it down, sell the presses and the type, let everybody go who’s been running this place since 2014, and tear apart a large collection of typographic treasures. We are a non-profit foundation – Erik Spiekermann Foundation gGmbH – any contributions are an immediate write-off. Our workshop is a unique place – we have a collection of historic materials like a printing museum, but no “hands-off” signs: everything is available for hands-on work. We do not stop at collecting, but develop new methods and techniques to bring letterpress printing and physical type into the digital age. We call it postdigital printing. If you’re in publishing, software house, or any other culturally engaged institution, you should be interested in keeping a place like p98a alive. We’re not talking millions, just a reasonable sum to pay the rent and two employees. Get in touch with me to discuss details, solutions, possibilities and to find out more. erik@p98a.com
Our friends at the Hamilton Woodtype Museum asked me to show the audience of their annual Wayzgoose event how we work at p98a. As this year’s event could only happen offline, it was renamed the Awayzgoose and I had to make a video instead of going to Wisconsin. Here it is.
Krautreporter is a news service, run by journalists in Berlin. More than 16,000 subscribers pay a minimum of 5 Euros a month to get daily updates on the news and well-researched long-reads. Just like newspapers used to do.
Printing a digital newspaper on a large Johannisberger press: video on Vimeo.
Once we had finished restoring our Johannisberger stop-cylinder press from 1924, we were looking for projects to test the machine. When I suggested to the friends at Krautreporter that perhaps we could print one special issue, they immediately went for that crazy idea.
We had already built our laser-setter and were able to make metal-backed plates up to 52 by 72 cm (approx 20×28in) directly from data, without going through photographic negatives. These plates fit our Heidelberg Cylinder press where we can print 8-up, i.e. 8 book-size pages on one plate. For the newspaper, however, we wanted to print the classic Nordic format, 44×57cm. In Germany we still have a few daily papers which are printed that size, the FAZ – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – being the most prestigious one.
The newspaper folded down for mailing
Making four aluminium bases to get the thin plates to the height of metal type (23.56mm = 0.928in) was an adventure in itself. All the other things we didn’t know about this large press took us five months to figure out, but eventually we started to print. We had enough paper (60gsm newsprint) to print 6000 copies, 8 pages, all on one sheet, back and front, 88×114cm plus some trim. One side black only, the other black and red. 18,000 prints altogether, at a speed of not much more than 300 an hour, with 2 people at the press at all times. We ended up with almost 5000 good copies. The sheet was perforated in half inside the press but not separated. We wanted the readers to get the full effect – the exact opposite of a smartphone screen. For the mailing we folded the large sheet into a narrow strip with a label around it.
The movie shows our own Daniel Klotz at the press. His buddy Sebastian came to help whenever he could. Daniel spent more than half a year figuring out how to make everything work. Now we know why printers used to go through a three-year apprenticeship. That press wasn’t made to print from polymer plates, and it still holds a few secrets. But we have our proof of concept, a full-size newspaper. It is so popular with Krautreporter subscribers that we may have to print more issues.
No idea where this line comes from; I’ve heard it often, not necessarily with “Design” as the keyword. After 50 years in the business, I can guarantee that it is entirely true.
We set the words from our brand new Real wood type (based on FF Real), 20cicero tall, cut for us by Tudor Petrescu in Romania. Tudor is busy right now, cutting a smaller size of 12 cicero in Real Regular as well as in Real Demi.
As always, the poster is printed on MetaPaper Rough Warm White 160 gsm in Black and Pantone Warm Red ink. From original wood and metal type on our Korrex Frankfurt, 50×70 cm.
The 50 posters each are numbered and signed by Erik Spiekermann. We ship everywhere and you can pay by PayPal. Price is the same in these currencies: £, $, €; always 98, including tax (where applicable) and shipping, wrapped in a solid cardboard tube. Please go to spiekerstuff to order. You can also check out the other prints there as well as the metal housenumbers I designed a few years ago. Some of them are still available from spiekerstuff.
One of the joys of running a letterpress studio is to share the experience with others. At galerie p98a we regularly set up workshop sessions for a group of individuals or an entire team. We’ve had design teams here for a team-building exercise, for a day of reprieve from sitting in front of their screens or simply for the fun of getting their hands dirty.
You’ll find a list of planned workshops here. That page links to Eventbrite, from where you can reserve a workshop and find out about the financials.
Our workshop at Galerie P98a in Berlin has been producing posters for a while now, plus other stuff. In our cellar, we also keep some of my older products, like the metal house numbers I designed for Design Within Reach in San Francisco a few years ago. We now have a shopping cart installed that makes buying posters or house numbers or all the other stuff painless – apart from having to pay for them, of course. You can also book workshops here.
This month’s poster is, as always, 50×70cm in size (approx 20×28in), printed 2 colours on 150gsm MetaPaper Rough. The type is 16 cicero (approx 17 pica) HWT Artz, the one I designed for the Hamilton Wood Type Museum to cut in wood for us.
There are 50 prints of each poster, numbered and signed by Erik Spiekermann. We ship everywhere and you can pay by PayPal. Price is the same in every currency, £, $, €: always 98, including tax (where applicable) and shipping, wrapped in a solid cardboard tube.
Orders with shipping address please to info@p98a.com.
