Last week we opened a world cup quiz for some days. Here is the combined prediction of all participants. Up to now the majority is correct. Winners of the quiz will be informed next week after the final. Fingers crossed.

Tripper Tricolor is our latest font release. A multi-colored, rock steady display font. With Tripper Tricolor all patriots can set texts in their national colors, and the rest of the world can set it in any other colors they prefer. Tripper Tricolor is easy to use and works nicely across the world wide web, as well as with your desktop apps.

Try it yoursef at underware.nl/fonts/tripper_tricolor

The World Cup Quiz

You can even win this font for free. Predict the best 3 countries of the World Cup in the World Cup Quiz. A piece of cake now that there are just a couple of teams left. Note that you can only join the quiz until 03 July 2014, only 2 days from now. Hurry up and good luck.

Our custom font family Stockmann Sans is currently on show at the Päivälehti Newspaper Museum in Helsinki, Finland. The exhibition is called “Tunnetko tyypin? Kirjaintyyppien merkillinen maailma”. In case you don’t speak Finnish: it means something like Do you know type? If not, don’t worry because letters are an even stranger world than Finland itself. Only Fins can come up with a title like this. Of course. This educational exhibition makes type design accessible for a broad audience, and features some creations of contemporary Finnish type designers like Hanna Hakala, Saku Heinänen, Jarno Lukkarila and our good own Sami Kortemäki.

The exhibition runs until the 31st of August 2014 at Päivälehti Newspaper Museum, Ludviginkatu 2-4, Helsinki, Finland.

Three weights, geometric sans, elegant italics, Latin & Cyrillics, from shop windows to price tags to coffee cups, from Helsinki to Moscow. Please meet Stockmann Sans, a custom font family by Underware for Scandinavia’s largest department store:

underware.nl/custom_type/stockmann/

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During the last couple of weeks we gave the Poles a hard time. We’ve been teasing them a little during our Wo-Wo Polski? Tour. That tour ended yesterday, so now we have to make it up again with our Polish friends. Therefore we have an über-unique offer: Mistrzowie caps! Poles know that it means “Champions”, and also know that Poland never has been a champion with anything. Therefore these caps are already collectors items, never seen before. Wear them, impress your friends and be prepared in case Poland ever wins something in the future. Polish colours, polish style. Alles geben, cause one day it might happen: Poland wins.

Every font order from Poland receives 2 free caps, so you can celebrate together with your friend (as long as stock lasts)

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This spring we’re gonna travel towards the Polish borders for some lectures and workshops during our “Wo-Wo Polski?” roadtrip. But we will not enter Poland. We repeat: we will not enter Poland. We are only gonna wave to the Poles. Miło cię spotkać! Four cities in three countries in one month, let’s hope our van won’t let us down.

22–25 April: Vilnius (Lithuania)

What’s up?

In this 4-day long typeworkshop at the Vilnius Art Academy you’re gonna create a typographic toolbox for social media. Short letterings which represent your different moods, which can be used to communicate your status in social media. You can use these letterings for your most favorite social media application. Letterings can be animated as well, just keep them pure typographic, black & white, without illustrative elements. Digital outline drawing of typefaces will be introduced, as well as some foundations of type design and lettering.

Thursday 24 April: lecture by Underware at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Maironio str. 3, Vilnius. Be in room 312 not any later than 18:00 o’clock, as Sami will then start to unravel the invisible research behind designing typefaces.

23 April: Plzeň (Czech Republic)
Lecture at the University of West Bohemia, as part of the DE.SIGN 2014 project. Faculty or Art & Design, 16:00 o’clock, sharp.

The iceberg called type design

Type design is maybe the most subconsciously observed visual human creation. Most people will read a text without notifying the typeface itself, and that’s totally legitimate. Only a happy few will notice the typeface which is used. You can call them graphic designers with a job-related disability if they can tell the name of the font, including its designer. But even those happy few will mostly not be aware of the kind of research which is involved in making those typefaces. The pan-European type design studio Underware will reveal the research behind their typefaces, and demonstrate that type design is like an iceberg: 90% is hidden under the water. A design lecture told from the submarine. Be aware: it can be dark below sea level…

24-25 April: Prague (Czech Republic)
24 April: Thursday at 19:00, lecture “The iceberg called type design” (see above) at Instituto Cervantes, Na Rybníčku 536/6, Prague. Open for public, so drop by if you’re around.

25 April: Type workshop at Prague College, School of Art & Design. One day to explore the foundations of type design, and offer yourself a kickstart in a new territory.

24 May: Leipzig (Germany)
The folks from Leipziger Typotage invited us to talk about type. In the end, type is about language. In the beginning too. And somewhere in between that language needs to get a certain shape. Therefore we present a message from the language engine room. “Occidental is dead. Now what?” Ten speakers in one day, so Akiem and Bas will do their best to get to the point quickly.

Do zobaczenia później!

Show me your typeface, and I’ll tell you who you are. Don’t like who you are? I can help you with your change. This is in short the essence of a typotherapy session. To explain what typotherapy is, we need to go 2 steps back.

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Apparently something inside Bello Script makes people go ‘woooeh, yes, I will make that myself’. After episode 1 & 2, here is another Bello-goes-freestyle episode. This time a bikeshop in Toronto went DIY all the way.

Some more pictures at fonts in use.

Game is on in the Finnish supermarkets.
Pingviini vs Eldorado = Nestlé vs Tuko Logistics = Sauna vs Sauna.

Of course it’s cool to pick a typeface called Sauna for the freezing compartment…

Is this the “if you can’t beat them, join them” kind of font choice?

Happy brothas around the globe.