bio

Foto © Dennis Letbetter San Francisco

Short:
Erik Spiekermann – art historian, printer, typedesigner (Meta, Officina, Unit, Info, Fira, Real, et al) information architect, author. Founder MetaDesign ’79, FontShop ’89. Honorary Royal Designer for Industry Britain 2007. TDC Medal & National German Lifetime Achievement Award 2011, etc. Now supervisory board of Edenspiekermann Berlin, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Los Angeles. Lives in Berlin, London & San Francisco. A book about his life and work “Hello I am Erik” was published by Gestalten Verlag in 2014. He now runs galerie p98a, an experimental letterpress workshop in Berlin

Longer:
Erik Spiekermann is information architect, type designer and author. Two of his typefaces, FF Meta and ITC Officina, are considered to be modern classics. He founded MetaDesign (1979) and FontShop (1988). He is behind the design of well-know brands such as Audi, Bosch, VW, German Railways and Heidelberg Printing, among others; information systems for Berlin Transit and Düsseldorf Airport and for publications like The Economist. He designed exclusive typefaces for corporations like Deutsche Bahn, Bosch, ZDF (German TV), Cisco, Mozilla and many others.
In 2013, Erik retired from his professorship at the UdK (University of the Arts) and is still Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen. In 2003 he received the Gerrit Noordzij Award from the Royal Academy in The Hague. In 2006 he was awarded an honorary doctorship from Pasadena Art Center. He was made an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA in Britain in 2007 and Ambassador for the European Year of Creativity and Innovation by the European Union for 2009.
In 2011 he received the German National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement and the TDC Medal as well as a Lifetime Award from the German Art Directors Club. He was managing partner and creative director of Edenspiekermann with offices in Berlin, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Los Angeles until June 2014 when he moved from that position to the supervisory board. He now runs galerie p98a, an experimental letterpress workshop in Berlin. Erik splits his time between Berlin and San Francisco and London, where his son Dylan lives.
A book about his life and work “Hello I am Erik” was published by Gestalten Verlag in 2014.

Longer still:
Erik Spiekermann is art historian, information architect, type designer and author. Two of his typefaces, FF Meta and ITC Officina, are considered to be modern classics. He founded MetaDesign (1979) and FontShop (1988). He is behind the design of well-know brands such as Audi, Bosch, VW, German Railways and Heidelberg Printing, among others; information systems for Berlin Transit and Düsseldorf Airport and for publications like The Economist. He designed exclusive typefaces for corporations like Deutsche Bahn, Bosch, ZDF (German TV), Cisco, Mozilla and many others.
In 2013, Erik retired from his professorship at the UdK (University of the Arts) and is still Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen. In 2003 he received the Gerrit Noordzij Award from the Royal Academy in The Hague. In 2006 he was awarded an honorary doctorship from Pasadena Art Center. He was made an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA in Britain in 2007 and Ambassador for the European Year of Creativity and Innovation by the European Union for 2009.
In 2011 he received the German National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement as well as the TDC Medal and a Lifetime Award from the German Art Directors Club.He has written books about type and typography, starting with »Rhyme & Reason, A Typographic Novel« which came out in 1987, while the original German version appeared in 1982. His book »Stop Stealing Sheep & learn how to use type properly« was written for Adobe Press in 1993 and has been reprinted several times: 180,000 books were sold of the first two editions. A third edition came out at the end of 2013. It has also been translated into Polish, Russian, Portuguese and German.
Erik wrote 48 columns for Form, the German design magazine. Since 2008 he has had a column in Blueprint magazine. He has almost 300,000 followers on Twitter and is frequently asked to contribute to books and magazines on topics from visual language to bicycles (he owns more than a dozen of them).
Spiekermann was managing partner and creative director of Edenspiekermann with offices in Berlin, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Los Angeles until June 2014 when he moved from that position to the supervisory board. He now runs an experimental letterpress workshop in Berlin: galerie p98a. Erik splits his time between Berlin and San Francisco and often visits London where his son Dylan lives.
A monograph about Spiekermann’s life and work “Hello, I am Erik” was published by Gestalten Verlag in 2014.

07/2020