Professor Erik Spiekermann is an internationally renowned type designer (FF Meta, ITC Officina, FF Info, FF Unit, Nokia Sans, Bosch Sans et al), as well as a prolific writer and creator of wayfinding systems worldwide. “Information designer” is the phrase he feels best expresses his work, which began when he was a teen. “A neighbor was a printer,” explains Spiekermann, “I used to hang out at his shop. When I was 15, I got a small printing press and started messing about with metal type.” He started working as a printer and typesetter while studying art history and English at university.

In 1979, Spiekermann founded MetaDesign and built it into Europe’s largest design studio, departing in 2001. In 1989 he started FontShop, the first independent mail order distributor for electronic fonts. Until 2014, he ran Edenspiekermann, with offices in Berlin, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Los Angeles (he’s now on the supervisory board), and he now heads up galerie p98a, a letterpress workshop in Berlin.

Sources: Vitra and Design Within Reach

Marc Newson has been described as one of the most influential designers of his generation. He has worked across an extremely wide range of disciplines, and his clients include some of the best-known and most prestigious brands in the world spanning diverse sectors from manufacturing and technology to transportation, fashion, and luxury goods.

Born in Sydney, Australia in 1963, Newson has lived and worked in Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, and presently resides in London where his company, Marc Newson Limited, has been based since 1997. He has had ongoing relationships with companies such as Apple, Louis Vuitton, Montblanc, Hermès, Nike, Hennessy, Dom Pérignon, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Beretta to name a few. As well as overseeing his own company, he has held senior positions at clients’ companies, having been Creative Director of Qantas Airways from 2005-2015, and Designer for Special Projects at Apple since his first involvement in the design of the ‘Apple Watch’ (2014).  

Marc Newson graduated from Sydney University in 1986 and with the aid of an Australian Crafts Council grant staged his first solo exhibition at the age of 23. By the age of 25, Marc had created the Lockheed Lounge, a riveted aluminium chaise longue that has arguably become one of the most iconic contemporary design works. Some 30 years later, it has set four world record prices at auction for work created by a living designer. His design pieces remain highly sought after on the secondary market and by 2010 accounted for 24% of total auction sales in the category for Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips.

Marc Newson has been included in TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and has received numerous awards and distinctions. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from Sydney University, Adjunct Professorships at Sydney University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and was appointed RDI (Royal Designer for Industry) by the Royal Society of Arts.  In 2012, he was awarded CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Source: marc-newson.com

"Subversive, ethical, ecological, political, humorous… this is how I see my duty as a designer.” Philippe Starck

A career rich with 10,000 creations - completed or yet to come - global fame and tireless protean inventiveness should never overshadow the essential, Philippe Starck has a mission, a vision: that creation, whatever form it takes, must improve the lives of as many people as possible. Starck vehemently believes this poetic and political, rebellious and benevolent, pragmatic and subversive duty should be shared by everyone. He sums it up with the humour that’s set him apart from the very beginning: “No one has to be a genius, but everyone has to participate.”

In the eyes of this accomplished citizen of the world, sharing his ethical and humanist vision of a more equal planet is a duty, if not a moral imperative, that results in unconventional projects, bearing fertile surprises. It’s easy to guess his course of action: an object must be useful before being beautiful.

His prophetic awareness of ecological implications, his deep understanding of contemporary mutations, his enthusiasm for imagining new lifestyles, his determination to change the world, his commitment to sustainable de-growth, his love of ideas, his concern with defending the intelligence of usefulness – and the usefulness of intelligence – have taken him from iconic creation to iconic creation... From everyday products like furniture and lemon squeezers to revolutionary mega-yachts, intensely vibrant, stimulating and phantasmagorical hotels and the miraculous technologies of individual wind turbines and the electric car, he never stops pushing the limits and criteria of contemporary design. It’s as a true visionary that he puts this art of innovation to the service of a design and democratic ecology, action-driven and respectful to both human and nature’s heritage, whether it’s with the Elise recycling bin or the Zartan, the first entirely recycled roto-moulded chair. The affordable and adjustable P.A.T.H. houses – high-tech pre-fab habitations – recently attested to the durability of an approach that he initiated in 1994 with the prefab house on sale in the 3 Suisses catalogue.

Heralding the phenomena of convergence and dematerialisation, Philippe Starck aims straight for the heart, highlighting the essential, extracting the structural minimum of every object, in order to offer creations and propositions closest to Man and Nature, best adapted to the future.

Just look at the mega-yacht A, symbol of minimalist elegance, or the Zik earphones for Parrot. He dreams of solutions so vital that he was the first French man to be invited to the TED conferences (Technology, Entertainment & Design) alongside renowned participants including Bill Clinton and Richard Branson.

Inventor, creator, architect, designer, artistic director, Philippe Starck is certainly all of the above, but more than anything he is an honest man directly descended from the Renaissance artists.

Source: starck.com