Berlin - Gallerie P98a: The Studio of Erik Speakermann

p98a, the studio of Erik Speakermann, is an experimental letterpress workshop in Berlin, Tiergarten, dedicated to letters, printing and paper. The workshop is run by a group of multi-disciplined designers who explore how letterpress can be redefined in the 21st century through printing, research, collecting, publishing and making.

Erik Spiekermann, Ferdinand Ulrich, Norman Posselt, Axel Nagel, Jan Gassel, Laureen Mahler, John Peck, and Susanna Dulkinys work with the workshop's hot metal (and wood) type, several proof presses, a Heidelberg Windmill platen and other traditonal analogue equipment, combining them with digital technologies. They expose polymer plates, cut large size type from digital data, mill punches to make matrices for casting new hot metal type and soon enough will be 3D-printing poster type as the materials become affordable.

The workshop is home to more than 500 cases of wood type from 8 to 60 Cicero (the German equivalent of a line, or 1 pica, but around 7% larger) and around 450 cases with foundry type from 6 to 96 point. The Linotype machine has 56 magazines from 6 to 18 point. Also a part of the workshops equipment is a digital Risograph, which is used to print small publications with spot colours, such as p98a Paper, the workshop's own small zine.

Using a direct-to-plate process to output digital plates for letterpress-printing, the designers also print books at their friends’ shop, Die Lettertypen, who have a Heidelberg Cylinder and a large 1924 Johannisberger stop-cylinder press, plus lots of other machines for typesetting, printing and finishing.

Occasionally the workshop takes commercial work and also sells prints to keep the studio open. 

On visiting the workshop, we were given a brief history of letterpress followed by a workshop tour and opportunity to print our own 'Design will save the world' print. Due to my practices concern with and my personal interest in hand-made design and print, I really enjoyed visiting the workshop. The insights given in to the history of letterpress and how it is used today were really interesting. It was also fascinating to see how the workshop is using 21st century to develop new processes and keep the process alive. I find I am often enthralled by contrast between the old and the new, and so these developments are great to hear about. I was excited to be at the studio, and thankful and appreciate of the opportunity to be shown the workshops collection. Throughout my time on the course so far I have almost become disinterested in typography, however the trip to p98a has revived this and inspired me to consider making typography a greater part of my practice in the future.

Photograph by Norman Posselt.