Erik Spiekermann  

Erik Spiekermann is a notorious German designer, one of the best-known typographers and designers in the world. His works span all different types of companies and corporations with an undisputed influence over the modern industry of graphic design. His portfolio includes companies such as Audi, Volkswagen and Bosch, and maybe more notable he is the man behind the hugely successful redesign of The Economist. 

Spiekermann is the founder of Germanys largest biggest design firm, in 1979, MetaDesign with offices everywhere from Berlin and London all the way to San Francisco. Erik has worked with Volkswagen, Lexus, Heidelberg Printing, Bosch and massive ongoing projects like Berlin Transit, Düsseldorf Airport and many others. As well as this he also started FontShop, a company for production and distribution of electronic fonts. 

Erik isn’t just a designer he is currently a board member of the German Design Council and was previously the President of the ISTD International Society of Typography Designers. And also a Past President of the IIID, International Institute for Information Design.  

Moving into a new chapter in his career, he left MetaDesign and is now responsible for running Edenspiekermann, with offices all over the world, in places such as Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Stuttgart and San Francisco.  

Perhaps his most important and famous gig was the redesigning of The Economist magazine in London, a very successful project completed in 2001.  As well as this he has worked on more personal projects. His book for Adobe Press,”Stop Taking Sheep” has been republished a few times and converted into German, Russian and Italian. 

In 2003 he got the Gerrit Noordzij Grant from the Regal Institute in Lair Haag. His sort framework DB Type for Deutsche Bahn was granted the Federal German Design Prize in gold for 2006. In May 2007 he was the first designer ever to be elected into the Hall of Fame by the European Design Grants for Communication Design.