European Design Awards: Eirk Spiekermann Admitted Into Hall of Fame

Dexigner pointed us over to the recently announced winners of the European Design Awards, which just concluded in Athens this month. On their site, they’ve got all the winners listed, covering everything from company and brand logos to motion graphics and “miscellaneous printed.” They’ also put up an interview with Erik Spiekermann, who took home this year’s Hall of Fame Award. Here’s a bit from that:

Q:In 1979 you started Meta, and when that got too big you started the United Designers Network in 2000, which in 2007 became SpiekermannPartners. “Thinking small” to you still means running three offices in three different timezones. Will small ever give way to smaller?

A:Small is relative. Nobody ever has more than 7 designers work on one project at the same time, but clients still take work to the big studios because it is safe. It is like using Helvetica: it is never very good, but never really bad. We are not big, but we get big projects because my reputation comes from the big projects I have been responsible for. I could happily just design book covers, but nobody will give me those.