For all its tidiness, though, Erik claims to be disorganised, and that it’s “people around me who save my ass.” He says: “I’ll have 40 projects open at the same time, plus seven lectures I’ve got to prepare in a week. It would be great if I was tidy, but I make appointments and forget to write them down…I’m really bad. I have no idea how I manage.”

It’s also little surprise, owing to his busy life, that he seems to take coffee very, very seriously. His is an espresso with no milk or sugar, if you were wondering. ““I’ll be up at two in the morning, putting shit together. And every time I think, ‘Maybe next time I should think about the project a little earlier,’ but I won’t,” he says. “So I’m relaxed about it. I don’t get nervous anymore, because I always know it’s going to be okay.”



Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson learnt from the piece – aspirational homes are one thing, but hearing someone so successful and brilliant tell us that it’s ok to be relaxed is invaluable. What other mantra does he stand by? We’ve seen it before but we’re happy to see it again in all its typographic glory: “Don’t work for assholes. Don’t work with assholes.”