Font of knowledge

One of Europe’s largest collections of letterpress equipment lies half-hidden in an inner courtyard on Berlin’s Potsdamer Strasse. The duplex studio of Hacking Gutenberg is home to a mass of proof presses, casting machines and cases of rare woodblock type that can rival the collection of any typography museum. The difference is that here, staff and visitors are encouraged to use the materials. Hacking Gutenberg’s mission is to update the letterpress, which was created by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century, for the present day. “You understand the world by touching things,” says founder Erik Spiekermann. “I’m afraid that our ability to do this is decreasing.”

Hacking Gutenberg is the result of a lifelong obsession with type. Spiekermann is one of Germany’s most prolific and revered graphic designers. He has shaped the visual identities of both the Deutsche Bahn and Berlin’s public-transit system, as well as that of car brands such as Audi and Volkswagen. Before he launched his first branding agency, Meta Design, in 1979, Spiekermann ran a typesetter’s workshop. Having grown up near Hanover, next to the printer of a local newspaper, he opened his own business as a teenager. “I just caught the bug,” he says. The collection at Hacking Gutenberg is Spiekermann’s second attempt at rehoming unloved machinery: his original equipment burnt down in a fire in London in 1977. “I promised myself that I would rebuild it when I retired,” he says.

But Hacking Gutenberg does not run at a regular pensioner’s pace. Spiekermann employs three staff for marketing and hosting workshops, and a handful of freelancers hire desks on the mezzanine. The office also hosts The Other Collection, a publishing house that prints books using laser-cut polymer plates on a letterpress machine from 1954.

“We’re no Luddites,” says Spiekermann. “If Gutenberg were alive today, this is how he would do it.” Spiekermann is also helping to redesign the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. Most days, however, he can be found, along with his team, between the whirring presses on Potsdamer Strasse. — L