Erik Spiekermann: Contributions to typography and fonts FF Meta, ITC Officina

Contents:

• FF Meta
• ITC Officina
• Typography in the Berlin Transport Network
• Nokia Sans
• Typographic Concept of The Economist
• Conclusion

Eric Spiekermann is an outstanding graphic designer and typographer who has gained recognition in the world of contemporary design. He is the creator of such iconic typefaces as FF Meta and Officina TLC, and the author of "On Type," which has become a definitive guide for numerous designers.

In 1979, he founded MetaDesign in Berlin, where he developed unique typefaces for brands such as Audi, Volkswagen, Mozilla, and Deutsche Bahn. Then, in 1989, together with his wife, Joan, and designer Neville Brody, he founded FontShop—the first company of its kind to specialize in mail-order fonts. Today, it is one of the largest online font stores. In addition, in partnership with Brody, he launched the experimental studio FontFont, which was engaged in the creation of fonts with the concept "by designers for designers."

In 2011, Spiekermann was awarded the German National Prize for His outstanding achievements in the field of design. He was also elected President of the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD).

On May 30, Erik Spiekermann turns 75. He continues his work, actively moving between Berlin, London, and San Francisco, running his agency Edenspiekermann and the experimental typography p98a, as well as writing books and participating in interviews. In this article, we will tell you about five of his most significant fonts.

In this text, you will get information about:

• one of the most widespread office fonts Officina ITC;
• a printing house that has been operating in the urban space for three decades;
• a font designed for screens with minimal sizes;
• letters that create the impression of being larger than they actually are;
• What is the key to Spiekermann's success?

FF Meta

FF Meta is a font family that has played a significant role in the modern development of typography related to digital design. Spiekermann sought to create a humanist grotesque that would be "an absolute alternative to Helvetica," which he considered "uninteresting and lacking in style."

In this article, we discuss the film Helvetica and share designers' opinions on the Helvetica font.

The history of the font's creation dates back to 1984, when Deutsche Bundespost, the German postal service, contacted Sedley Place Design, where Spiekermann worked at the time. They were looking for a versatile, compact typeface that would ensure good legibility on postage stamps and also be suitable for mailboxes and trucks.

To optimize the space for his new typeface, Spiekermann opted for narrow letters. It was also important to choose the right stroke width so that the thin characters would not get lost or blend in small sizes, and also to look aesthetically pleasing in large spaces.

Although the typeface development required considerable effort, Deutsche Bundespost ultimately decided to abandon the project. Changing the typography would have meant reissuing all documentation and changing the design of the vehicles. Nevertheless, it was these preliminary designs that formed the basis for the FF Meta typeface. Spiekermann, together with the MetaDesign team, refined the initial sketches, increasing the number of weights and styles, and then released the font in 1991.

The basic version of FF Meta features subtle stroke width variability, while the beveled terminals and subtle curves of some elements give it a more expressive and welcoming feel. This feeling is enhanced by the perfectly round dots above the letters i and j, which are significantly wider than the strokes themselves, creating the impression that they are about to roll out of place. With tall lowercase letters and open forms, FF Meta offers excellent legibility even at small sizes.

These characteristics contributed to its increased popularity with the development of desktop publishing in the 1990s and the expansion of its range of applications. FF Meta was originally designed as a sans-serif font. However, over time, users began asking Spiekermann what serif font would harmoniously complement it. At first, he recommended options such as Swift, Minion or FF Clifford, but later decided to develop another version of Meta - this time with serifs. Together with Christian Schwartz and Chris Sowersby, he worked on this task, and three years later, in 2007, the new version of the font was presented to the public.

Today, the collection FF Meta fonts come in over sixty different variations. Each typeface features a full italic style with unique letterforms, making them suitable for a wide variety of applications. FF Meta has become one of the most well-known and popular fonts of the past two decades. In 2011, it was added to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). This font is used in the corporate identities of organizations such as the Mozilla Foundation, Imperial College London, and the Liberal Democratic Party. It is also featured on postage stamps issued in the Netherlands.

ITC Officina

Another font that has earned classic status is ITC Officina, created by Erik Spiekermann in 1990 for the International Font Corporation (ITC). This typeface was conceived as an alternative to the then-popular grotesques and was intended to be a universal tool for office work, including printing on laser printers with relatively low resolution.

Spieckermann chose two types as models for the typewriter fonts: Letter Gothic and Courier. The former attracted attention with its narrow structure but lacked serifs. Courier, meanwhile, had characteristic serifs but was distinguished by minimal contrast in its lines.

Spieckermann himself created Officina Sans. While his friend Gerhard Unger, known for the Swift typeface, initially agreed to help develop the serif version, Serif, he was soon forced to abandon his work at the sketch stage due to being busy with another project. In 1989, Just van Rossum joined the MetaDesign team and supported Spiekermann in completing the serif version of the font. Officina fonts feature narrow proportions, allowing for efficient use of the available space. They feature expressive serifs, making them suitable for print and ensuring good legibility even on low-resolution screens or poor-quality paper. Spiekermann also paid special attention to the design of numbers, since "illegible numbers can pose a serious danger" in the field of document flow.

Today, the font ITC Officina is available in two versions—serif and sans-serif. Each version includes five weights, complemented by corresponding italics. This diversity has made this typeface a versatile tool, extending its reach beyond its original office use. For example, ITC Officina can be found both on Amazon's website and on its product packaging. In Scotland, this font occupies an important place, as it is the main one for National Railways, used on trains, signs and pointers.

For a long time, the ITC font Officina was distributed free of charge as a bundled tool with Adobe Illustrator, which unfortunately had a negative impact on its perception – designers began to use it in more projects, and it began to look somewhat mundane. Nevertheless, despite this, ITC Officina still consistently ranks among the most popular fonts according to FontShop and is included in ratings of the best fonts compiled by specialized design publications.

Typography in the Berlin Transport Network

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Spiekermann's team was commissioned to create a redesigned sign system for the Berlin public transport company BVG (Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe).

The designer was faced with a challenging task. He had to develop an intuitive and user-friendly wayfinding system for the city's public transport system, as well as propose a new typeface that would be legible on both the U-Bahn and street signs. The main goal was to create a new visual image for a unified Berlin within the context of the transport network.

For BVG, Spiekermann developed the FF Transit typeface, which is based on Frutiger. This typeface is considered one of the most effective for navigation purposes and has already been used, for example, in the design of the navigation system at Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Details about the origins of the Frutiger typeface can be found in our review dedicated to type designer Adrian Frutiger.

When creating his typeface, Spiekermann retained the original proportions, but made it narrower. As a result, the new typeface looks more elegant compared to its predecessor. The designer returned to round shapes for grotesque dots and increased the contrast in line thickness. The project included a variety of options that took into account all possible areas of application.

In particular, different font variants were created that take into account visual distortions depending on lighting conditions. For example, the Transit Front design is intended for signs that are illuminated from the outside, while Transit Back is created for letters illuminated from the back or from the inside. It's worth noting that the dark letters intended for backlighting had wider strokes, which helped compensate for the light halos that appeared within. In contrast, the lightbox letters were designed with thinner strokes, which allowed the width specified in the font itself to be visually achieved when backlit. Thus, the designer was able to harmoniously combine the aesthetic qualities of the font with passenger convenience.

Spiekermann used FF Transit on an updated map that connected the transport networks of East and West Berlin, including bus routes, trams and the metro. This system was designed to improve accessibility and ease of movement around the city for its residents, as East and West Berlin developed separately for almost thirty years.

Nevertheless, Eric himself highlights the unification of public transport colors as his greatest achievement. In his opinion, it was perhaps the best branding solution: "I think it was a really great idea—you don't need a logo, because if you see a yellow vehicle, you know you can get in it, and it will take you where you need to go!"

The public transport information system in the reunified Berlin still functions to this day. The FF Transit font is still used on signs and information boards, remaining a prominent element of the city's identity.

Nokia Sans

One of Spiekermann's clients was Nokia. In the nineties, it became popular among technology companies to use the Rotis font as a corporate font. Nokia was no exception to this trend. In the early 2000s, the company approached Spiekermann to create a unique corporate font for their needs.

In 2002, Spiekermann unveiled the fruits of his labor—the Nokia font collection, which included both grotesque and serif fonts.

The Nokia Sans and Nokia Serif fonts appear visually larger compared to other fonts of the same font size. This is due to their increased character height and relatively small letter spacing. At the same optical size, Nokia Sans occupies less space than the similar Rotis font. This approach to sizing the letters of the new font is rooted in the traditions of screen fonts used in previous mobile phone models. In the pre-smartphone era, letters on monochrome displays were only 8 pixels high, with only 3 pixels for letter extensions.

While Nokia was considering introducing a new corporate font in future models In 2001, Spiekermann introduced its first smartphone, based on the Symbian S60 operating system, to its mobile devices. The device featured a full-color screen with a resolution of only 176 by 208 pixels. The new font had to be compact enough to accommodate the maximum amount of text on such a small display. Created by Spiekermann for print media, Nokia Sans was adapted for screens with limited resolution while maintaining its characteristic shapes.

Nokia Sans became the key element of the font family. Spiekermann recommended it for creating compact and structured text used in instructions and advertising materials. It is an ideal solution for situations where lengthy reading is not required and saving space is important. At the same time, other fonts were developed with specific needs in mind. For example, Nokia Sans Title is intended for headlines and logos, while Nokia Serif is better suited for longer texts where serif fonts are preferred.

Nokia remained part of the typographic system created by Spiekermann, for nearly ten years. The Nokia Sans font was not only included in the logo but also actively used in packaging, advertising materials, and instructions. It wasn't until 2011 that the company rebranded, introducing a new generation of Lumia mobile devices running on the Microsoft platform.

Typographic concept of The Economist

In 2000, Erik Spiekermann was busy redesigning the British The Economist. The results of his work were truly impressive: in just the first year after the revamp, the magazine's circulation doubled.

The Economist magazine was founded in 1843 in Great Britain as a publication devoted to political economy. By the late 1990s, it had transformed into a weekly news magazine, presented on a bright, glossy cover. However, its interior design continued to use only two colors, preserving the newspaper's image. The publishers, working with Spiekermann, had to figure out how a text-heavy publication in a rapidly changing digital environment could continue to attract readers and remain competitive among new media. One of the most noticeable changes was the introduction of full-color printing.

Spiekermann created updated page layouts, covering everything from the table of contents to the grid structure, and proposed new typographic solutions. To improve readability, he made changes to the design of the Eco Type font, which was previously used for the main text of The Economist. Spiekermann managed to preserve the distinctive features of the original typeface. He explained his changes as follows: "I reduced the font size, but the client was convinced I'd actually enlarged the letters, as they appeared larger on the page than before. Convincing a client to use a legible typeface is easy. Simply create a mockup, print it, and present it to the client. Our typeface was smaller than the previous one, but much more legible."

ITC Officina Sans was recommended as a secondary typeface for subheadings, footers, and navigation elements. In addition, Officina took up a significant place in infographics, the volume of which increased significantly after the transition to color printing.

Eric Spiekermann effectively transformed the visual style of the magazine: he introduced color, created an updated layout and typography. Typically, the design is periodically updated every seven years, but the system developed by Spiekermann lasted almost twice as long - until 2018 - and became an iconic element of the publication.

Conclusion

During his nearly fifty-year professional career, Erik Spiekermann has observed dramatic transformations in technology. He is one of the typographers who significantly influenced the visual appearance of typefaces in the 1990s. In interviews, he has repeatedly shared memories of spending a lot of time in his father's printing shop as a youth, and how his knowledge of analog processes played a significant role in his later career.

Even in the modern digital age, when it comes to creating designs or new typefaces, Spiekermann still prefers to start with a paper drawing. "When I'm designing a typeface, I analyze whether it should be thicker or thinner, softer or harder, and this process is so easy to implement with a pencil. I spend about two days sketching to capture the basic idea, and then it all moves into the technical stage."

In this article, we present several recommendations from Erik Spiekermann, outlined in his book "On Type."

Erik Spiekermann focuses on simplifying complex concepts, striving to present them in the most accessible form. In his view, the designer's job is to make information easy to understand. At the same time, the aesthetic side gives objects additional value: “If objects look attractive, people are more willing to use them.”

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• Sickle and size: typography in the Soviet Union
• The most outstanding magazine covers: exclusively typography.
• Overview of font licenses: everything you need to know.