Erik Spiekermann

Erik Spiekermann, born 1947, studied History of Art and English in Berlin. He is author, information architect, type designer (FF Meta, ITC Officina, FF Info, FF Unit, LoType, Berliner Grotesk and many corporate typefaces) and author of books and articles on type and typography.

He was founder (1979) of MetaDesign, Germany’s largest design firm with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. He is responsible for corporate design programs for Audi, Skoda, Volkswagen, Lexus, Heidelberg Printing, Bosch and way-finding projects like Berlin Transit, Düsseldorf Airport and many others. In 1988 he started FontShop, a company for production and distribution of electronic fonts.

He is board member of the German Design Council and Past President of the ISTD International Society of Typographic Designers, as well as the iiid International Institute for Informationdesign. In 2001 he left MetaDesign and now runs Edenspiekermann with offices in Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Stuttgart & San Francisco.

In 2001 he redesigned The Economist magazine in London. His book for Adobe Press,“Stop Stealing Sheep” has been reprinted several times and translated into German, Russian and Italian. His corporate font family for Nokia was released in 2002. In 2003 he received the Gerrit Noordzij Award from the Royal Academy in Den Haag. His type system DB Type for Deutsche Bahn was awarded the Federal German Design Prize in gold for 2006. In May 2007 he was the first designer to be elected into the Hall of Fame by the European Design Awards for Communication Design.

Erik is Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen and in 2006 received an honorary doctorship from Pasadena Art Center. In 2007, he was made an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA in Britain. In 2009, he became European Ambassador for Innovation and Creativity by the European Union. The German Design Council gave him their 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest award in Germany. In May 2011 he was the 25th recipient of the TDC Medal, awarded by the Type Directors Club New York.

In January, 2014, Spiekermann founded Galerie P98a, a company that experiments with new technologies to make new type for letterpress. He has also been a partner at the independent design studio, Edenspiekermann, since 2009.

Spiekermann lives and works in Berlin, London and San Francisco.