TYPO-Berlin 2011 coverage — Blog

Image 1: The theme of this year’s TYPO-Berlin conference is “Shift.” The logo’s typeface is FF Basic Gothic, designed by Hannes von Döhren.

Europe’s largest graphic design conference will convene for the 16th time this week. From May 19–21, over 1,500 design professionals will gather in Berlin’s impressive Haus der Kulturen der Welt congress hall for TYPO-Berlin 2011. Organized by FontShop AG – founded by Joan and Erik Spiekermann in 1989 – TYPO-Berlin is now part of a series. TYPO will expand, for the first time, to London in October.

FontShop was kind enough to issue me a press ticket to this year’s event, so I will be filing reports for I Love Typography during and after the conference. Personally, TYPO-Berlin is one of my annual design highlights. 2011 will be the eighth time that I attend. My first visit was back in 2004; during those three days, I learned more in than I in a typical college semester. After additional installments as a student, and as a member of the Linotype staff, I gave a presentation of my own during TYPO-Berlin 2010. After seven rounds, the TYPO-Berlin organization team still continues to surprise me; there are several great speakers in the line-up that I have never heard before, including April Greiman, Jost Hochuli, Robin Kinross, and Kris Sowersby. Aside from these, there are easily at least a dozen other talks that I am looking forward to hearing, and which I am eager to cover.

Image 2: Inside the main hall at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt, or the House of World Cultures. This stage has seen some of the greatest speakers in the history of photo and digital type design, including Ed Benguiat, Matthew Carter, Günter Gerhard Lange, Erik Spiekermann, and Kurt Weidemann. TYPO-Berlin’s presentations run along parallel tracks, with additional speakers on smaller stages throughout the building. Photo: Alexander Blumhoff.

According to the TYPO-Berlin website, a limited number of tickets are still available, so there still may be time to consider registering. Additionally, anyone can purchase a ticket for the post-conference party, TYPOnight. Readers unable to travel to Berlin over the next few days can rely on the Internet: two TYPO presentation will be live streamed per day on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Now may even be a good time to begin planning to attend TYPO-Berlin 2012. While no information about next year’s conference has yet been announced, readers should keep an ear out for details. Traditionally, visitors who register during the December before the event reap significant early-bird discounts, especially on the price of student tickets. Also, during the last several years, TYPO-Berlin has run a weekly online ticket-giveaway design contest. This year, two colleagues of mine were among the 29 lucky designers to win free admission over this route. It seems to me that chances are pretty good that, with a little persistence, a future TYPO-Berlin ticket could be yours to come by.

There are a number of ways that readers may monitor the TYPO-Berlin 2011 goings-on. For instance, the conference itself is on Twitter, at @typeconf; the official hash tag is #typo2011. A Flickr pool has been set up at, too, and there are already dozens of articles to read at the TYPO-Berlin blog.

Other reading