
Interview with Type Designer Erik Spiekermann - johannesippen
https://johannesippen.com/2019/erik-spiekermann/
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shaqbert
Aah, the quip on the road network typeface... some highlights

> The narrower a typeface gets, the less legible it becomes. We do also know
> that we have long words in Austria, like “Gumpersdorfer Straße” in Vienna –
> so now they only use the compressed version, even for short words, because
> it’s easier for them. Then I get blamed because it’s not legible, but that
> is not my fault. Maybe it is because I should have said no. When you’re
> supposed to work for a bad company, like weapons or tobacco, the argument
> is: “If I don’t do it, somebody else will, so I might as well do it.” If I
> wouldn’t have done the compressed version, somebody else would have done it,
> maybe even worse.

> “Shit, Spiekermann, you are right – you make us look better!” – that was my
> big lesson here: You make them look better, that is your job. We have the
> skill of showing them, not just complaining about things that don’t work.

> My Dutch friend Lucas de Groot put it nicely when he was learning German:
> “We have to verglücklichen our clients”, we have to make them happy.

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jerzzhang
“I want to die as the person with the most letterpresses” - an insightful,
personable, and inspiring interview that illustrates Spiekermann's views on
design but also his personality in an awesome way!

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johannesippen
Awww thank you! _blush_

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PStamatiou
Stopped listening to this guy after this fiasco..
[https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/erik-spiekermann-laura-
kalb...](https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/erik-spiekermann-laura-kalbag-
twitter/)

~~~
__m
Why? He’s a typographer, of course he’s pedantic. Paired with his
eccentricities it’s quite entertaining to listen to him.

~~~
h9n
At the risk of flogging a dead horse, the tweeter was technically correct when
she said that she had written a book. She said neither that she edited,
typeset, printed, bound, distributed, shelved, loaned, sold, nor solely forged
a book out of the edifice of the void.

Pedantically-speaking, Spiekermann dropped the ball on this one.

