Photo by Willeke Machiels

Spiridon Giannakis is a designer and publisher from Germany who specializes in art books and crowdfunding. He is also a curator/consultant for multiple events and companies, an avid networker, and a b2b matchmaker.

Starting with working in print media in 2006, he was employed for 8 years as a designer for a local publisher of touristic media. He then started working as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator in October 2013.

Beginning 2017 with Even Mehl Amundsen’s TEGN, he focused on creating art books, combining his skills with his passion for art. Since then he also helped other artists, like Abigail Larson, Björn Hurri, Bastien Lecouffe Deharme, and many more, to publish their work by designing their artbooks and managing the crowdfunding campaigns and marketing. After over 20 successful campaigns he now teaches and advises people on their own campaign strategies. Aside from these collaborations, he is also designing books for clients like Éditions Caurette (Kim Jung Gi, Katsuya Terada, Jesper Ejsing), Xsolla, WeAreFuzzy, and other independent gaming studios.

Intensive networking and his love for community-related projects resulted in the launch of Firestarter in 2017, an internationally distributed magazine and hub, centered around events in the creative industry, eventually acquired by CGMA in 2020.

Aside from art book publications he is also a curator for events like Playgrounds and Theme Park, and is also working for CD Projekt RED as a Promotional Strategy Consultant for the Promised Land Art Festival. Spiridon often travels to events around the globe and hosts panels for his platform convoloot, and if you ever see him around, don’t be a stranger and say hi!

In 2023 he founded his company, called Cursive.

He is married and lives with his wife and son in Southwest Germany. Aside from collecting art books, Spiridon slaps the bass, loves hiking along the Rhine Valley, and constantly rants about fake martial arts and pointless Instagram food.

Spiridon often teams up with type designer and calligrapher Viktor Pushkarev for projects like Codex Obscurus and many more. Another member of his team is designer Stella Zografou, who supports his projects as his assistant designer.