Hasta La Ideas

Images via Gestalten

Erik Spiekermann is a living legend when it comes to typography—in Gary Hustwit’s Helvetica, he memorably acknowledged that typefaces were “his friends”—who is among the last generation of graphic designers who got their start by typesetting by hand. On the occasion of the forthcoming publication of a new book, Hello, I Am Erik, Gestalten is pleased to present Spiekermann’s kind of ode to the letterpress in a new short film.

There are two differences between what we do here and what we’ve done on screen; I’ll start with the physical. Everything you touch and put in the machine, afterwards you have to clean it up and put it back again, put it on the shelf or the rack… You have to touch everything—you have to think about it, you have to plan a little more, and whatever you do is fairly permanent.

…your material influences you… that’s the philosophical divergence. You can’t just have any idea—you basically have a rough idea and then you start working,
and then the material shapes your idea.

…I look at my drawer and I know what I have… whereas on my computer, I have Photoshop; I can do images that didn’t exist before…

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