SpiekermannPartners › Press release: Spiekermann is back!

Spiekermann is back!

Berlin, February 15th 2007 — Designer Erik Spiekermann makes a fresh start, with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco, together with partners Fabian Rottke, Ralf Weißmantel, Susanna Dulkinys and Marianne Schuler.

Designer and typographer Erik Spiekermann is one of the most internationally renowned personalities in the business. Today, along with five partners, he opens the branding and design agency SpiekermannPartners in Berlin’s Friedrichstraße, with branches in San Francisco and London. Erik Spiekermann had envisaged his future very differently when he left MetaDesign five years ago, the company he co-founded in 1979 and made into one of the biggest worldwide design companies. He had intended to start a network, with good designers and project managers who, from project to project, would come to form a core team. He wanted to do small jobs, write books, and breathe new life into publications such as the British Economist magazine. So he founded UDN I United Designers Network with former colleagues. However, everything changed when the big clients started calling. Bosch, Deutsche Bahn, Lufthansa and many others were seeking competent solutions for their design projects.

‘In barely five years we’ve completely outgrown the loose network’, explains Erik Spiekermann. ‘We’ve built a solid company, piece by piece, with competent partners and over 25 co-workers. But with “network” in the name we simply didn’t have the prerequisites of an international brand, hence SpiekermannPartners. My partners being Fabian Rottke, Ralf Weißmantel, Susanna Dulkinys and Marianne Schuler.’

The renaming of the company is more evolution than revolution, as much will remain the same, like the idea of there being more chiefs than indians. ‘We don’t have a sales team or a complex hierarchy’, says Spiekermann. ‘ The client meets the people directly in charge of the project. Each of the partners has at least 15 years professional experience. What unites us all is a passion for the work and a common understanding of how we’d like to conceive and visualise communication; competently and with personal involvement. We don’t wish merely to administer design, we want to get involved in good work, both now and in future.’

‘To think further than expected, to work more thoroughly than required’ is the company motto. What is it though that really distinguishes SpiekermannPartners from virtually every other agency? ‘We take our work very personally, and don’t fob it off on less experienced colleagues’, says Spiekermann. ‘We work systematically and precisely. And we make our clients’ problems our own. We look, listen, ask, contradict, recommend, persuade, help along. But you ought to drop by and get to know us. We have a wonderful espresso machine, and the door is always open.’

SpiekermannPartners is the branding and design agency of Erik Spiekermann, Fabian Rottke, Ralf Weißmantel, Susanna Dulkinys and Marianne Schuler. The agency operates internationally, with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco works for clients such as Bosch, Birkhäuser Verlag, Die Bahn, Gravis, Lufthansa, n-tv, Nokia, Messe Frankfurt, Pioneer Investments and RWE Utility on corporate design, magazine layouts and exclusive fonts.

The DB Type type family developed for Deutsche Bahn by Erik Spiekermann and his partners was recently awarded the design prize of the Federal Republic of Germany for 2007. Erik Spiekermann is a designer and typographer, honorary professor at the HfK in Bremen, honorary doctor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (USA), as well as committee member of international design institutes. In 2004 he was honoured with the Gerrit Noordzij Award of the Royal Academy of The Hague.

We will gladly send you photos of Erik Spiekermann and the partners for royaltyfree use.

PR Contact:
Achim Klapp, Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit | SpiekermannPartners
T +49.30.257 97 016
[email protected]
Friedrichstraße 126 | D-10117 Berlin
www.spiekermannpartners.com