Looking into Erik Spiekermann's home and studio on Freunde von Freunden

Date
27 April 2015
“Someone made a map of at least 600 people in Berlin who have worked with me at some time,” Erik Spiekermann tells Freunde von Freunden. “It just means that I am old.”

Whether or not you’d deem him old, with his years of experience not only comes a very impressive and extensive list of collaborators and clients, but a bloody lovely home and studio, which we’re shown in this great new profile.

Erik is the typographer and designer behind projects including the signage for the Berlin Transit network and FontShop, the first mail-order distributor for digital fonts; so with these sensibilities its little surprise his home feels like a carefully curated design work in its own right.

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

For all its tidiness, though, Erik claims to be disorganised, and that it’s “people around me who save my ass.” He says: “I’ll have 40 projects open at the same time, plus seven lectures I’ve got to prepare in a week. It would be great if I was tidy, but I make appointments and forget to write them down…I’m really bad. I have no idea how I manage.”

It’s also little surprise, owing to his busy life, that he seems to take coffee very, very seriously. His is an espresso with no milk or sugar, if you were wondering. ““I’ll be up at two in the morning, putting shit together. And every time I think, ‘Maybe next time I should think about the project a little earlier,’ but I won’t,” he says. “So I’m relaxed about it. I don’t get nervous anymore, because I always know it’s going to be okay.”


Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson learnt from the piece – aspirational homes are one thing, but hearing someone so successful and brilliant tell us that it’s ok to be relaxed is invaluable. What other mantra does he stand by? We’ve seen it before but we’re happy to see it again in all its typographic glory: “Don’t work for assholes. Don’t work with assholes.”

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Above

Freunde von Freunden: Erik Spiekermann

Share Article

About the Author

Emily Gosling

Emily joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in the summer of 2014 after four years at Design Week. She is particularly interested in graphic design, branding and music. After working It's Nice That as both Online Editor and Deputy Editor, Emily left the company in 2016.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.