For those who want to learn to design type:

• You can study the type-basics on typeworkshop.com. You can read this pdf and try to gain knowledge.
• You can learn from tons of online resources these days, lucky bastards.
• You can read dozens of good books on type.
• But the most precious treat is time for practicing. Quit the internet, shut down your computer, switch off your phone, put your books back to the shelf. Silence and concentration. Get paper and some tools (pencils, pens, whatever), and start sketching, drawing, writing. It’s the best way to learn and discover your own direction. Do it.

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We love local culture. Sinterklaas means sweet stuff. Found in our archives (around 1999?): apparently we bought 25 chocolate letters to do what? Spoiling our stomachs with 6 kg of chocolate for a nice piece of typography. Pff, what were we thinking?

Hand drawn envelope in our inbox today. Emails should be send with the same dedication.

Because different elevator models are usually made by many different parties and departments, they quickly loose harmony. Recently we created some custom typefaces for Kone, who wanted to match their different models of elevators and escalators.

This was a fascinating project for us. Not only is there a bunch of typographic laws (those lawyers!) on elevator typography, each part of this project also had very specific requirements and applications. Creating segments which can display every number as well every capital, is a challenging assignment for example. A puzzle with so many limitations your head starts spinning.

See more of this project: Kone, elevator typography

How often has been asked: what is design? And how often was the answer solving problems? The idea that designers are problem solvers was taught in the 90s at art academies throughout Europe. But designers should not just be looking for solutions. They should at least be looking for new solutions. So they have to come up with new ideas. But how do you come up with new ideas? Not by going from A straight to B, where B is your final destination. Just look at airline logos, how many times didn’t that end up with a bird? Countless times. They all solved their problem. Original? No. Does it work? Yes, problem solved. But is this what design should be? No.
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Why is it that always the night before we give a presentation, we get new ideas for the presentation? This movie was made with the mirror in the hotel room the night before our presentation at the Type Directors Club in New York, June 2012. Actually, the lecture started and ended with Bas his dad, who has trouble making good letter shapes.

Even more enjoyable than spotting fonts in a parallel word, is spotting fonts in a fictive world. Bello goes squooosh with Donald.

It’s a joy to see such colourful poetry. This is a project by the Dublin based graffiti artist Maser, which he created together with the inmates of the horribly deprived and overcrowded Mountjoy prison in Dublin. Texts are set in Bello, and were painted by the inmates during a period of 2 weeks on the inner walls and at the prison yard. Considering the fact that they are on a 23-hour lock-up due to escalating conflicts between drug gangs, this was painted in their very rare spare time. There aren’t any toilets in a 4 man cell, and that small cell is occupied by 6 inmates. So 2 sleep on the floor. You urinate and shit into a bucket in the corner of the cell. Chillin’.

See more pictures of this project at fonts in use.

Vivement Mai avec François Hollande.

In May 2012, François Hollande was elected President of France. The identity of his campaign was build around the typeface Bello, a rather uncommon choice for a presidential campaign. After the electoral victory some loony French people nicknamed Bello the French Gotham, but hey… don’t believe all rumours.

See more pictures at fonts in use.