Even Erik Spiekermann agrees that Helvetica is

Even Erik Spiekermann agrees that Helvetica is sometimes an appropriate choice.

• design
• erikspiekermann
• Helvetica
• typography

FE-Mittelschrift

Erik Spiekermann on FE-Mittelschrift, the typeface used for German license plates.

The official typeface for our license plates is now called FE-Mittelschrift, with FE meaning it is Fälschungs-Erschwert, i.e. difficult to forge. Apparently car thieves, terrorists and notorious law-breakers had been exploiting DIN’s geometric construction principle and turning E into F or 3 into 8 etc by simply using a bit of black tape or white paint.

Here are all the alphanumeric characters:

Note the tamper-resistant differences between the 6 (no notch) and 9 (notched), the E & F, the I & 1, the O & zero, the P & R, and so on.

• cars
• erikspiekermann
• femittelschrift
• fonts
• typography

Great clean, simple design for the Le

Great clean, simple design for the Le Monde Diplomatique newspaper. Here’s some more info on the publication.

• design
• erikspiekermann
• journalism

Erik Spiekermann explains how Nokia’s corporate typeface

Erik Spiekermann explains how Nokia’s corporate typeface came to be. Looks like it was based on one of Nokia’s onscreen bitmap fonts. I’ve always wanted to create a “real” version of Silkscreen like that.

• design
• erikspiekermann
• fonts
• nokia
• Silkscreen
• typography