Erik Spiekermann, born 1947, studied History of Art and English in Berlin. He is information architect, type designer (FF Meta, FF MetaSerif, ITC Officina, FF Govan, 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. Projects included corporate design programmes for Audi, Skoda, Volks­wagen, Lexus, Heidelberg Printing and way­finding projects like Berlin Transit, Düsseldorf Airport and many others. In 1988 he started FontShop, a company for production and distribution of electronic fonts. Erik Spiekermann is board member of ATypI and the German Design Council and Past President of the ISTD, International Society of Typographic Designers, as well as the IIID. In 2001 he left MetaDesign and is now a partner in Edenspiekermann with offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, London and San Francisco.

He redesigned The Economist magazine in London for its relaunch in 2001. His book for Adobe Press, “Stop Stealing Sheep” is in its second edition as well as published in German and in Russian. 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. Recently Erik Spiekermann received the German Design Prize for Lifetime Achievements.

Erik Spiekermann is Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen and in 2006 received 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.