Last Friday we were all damn lucky to get sunburned at Typeradio‘s first open air festival. 26° Celsius intensified the pleasure of the 500 visitors and tons of participants. See lots of pictures at the festival website Now-we-are-talking.nl or read a review at the FontFeed. We would just like to thank everyone for the good atmosphere, the good music, nice music, the good words and nice words, surprising creations, the positive energy and especially thank the Type Legends for stirring up and inaugurating this event.

If you’re the lucky owner of the third issue of 8 Faces magazine, you came across a loose flyer. Yep, we Liza made that flyer by hand. 2000 different versions have been distributed, they are all different! You could be damn lucky and win this typographic lottery.

Try your luck: www.underware.nl/jetaime

We don’t expose our Typeradio activities here a lot, but feel it’s time to make an exception now. After years in the making, the Type Legends box is going to be published soon. Type Legends? Yes, we thought it would be a good idea to interview four persons who influenced our lives and the (typo-)graphic design field in general: Wim Crouwel, Ed Benguiat, Adrian Frutiger and Gerrit Noordzij. Living legends if you ask us. We extensively talked to them for this series, but that ain’t enough. We would wrong them by simply publishing these interviews online, we felt this was a perfect moment to honour them with a special publication.

After we interviewed the four legends, every interview was handed over to a different band. Each band – Supercity, The Walt, Legowelt & Jac Palinckx – composed and recorded two songs for this legend, based on the interview. These songs are now published as vinyl records. The record sleeves are designed by four different graphic designers who all have a connection with each legend. Dutchman Erik van Blokland designed the sleeve for Gerrit Noordzij’s music, Swiss Büro Destruct for Adrian Frutiger, Strange Attractors for Ed Benguiat and the Amsterdam based Experimental Jetset created the cover for Wim Crouwel. Last but not least the American curator and writer Ellen Lupton wrote a fictional essay on these four legends. ‘Four Typographers walked into a Bar’ describes a hilarious meeting between the four gentlemen.

This Type Legends box will be presented at 2 September 2011 at the Now we are talking Festival in Den Haag. This super relaxed Typeradio event – composed of workshops, talks, music, films, surfing, camping & love – takes place at an extravaganza location at a Dutch beach pavillion. You can be part of this now-or-never day simply by registering. If you want to be absolutely sure that you are the proud owner of the limited edition Type Legends box, you can personally pick it up that day. First come, first serve.

Book your ticket (with Type Legends box) at now-we-are-talking.nl

Recently Bas was asked about his inspiration. Here’s his answer:

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Today in our mailbox: letters from Tanja & Etapes magazine.

You might remember Tanja, the girl over whom we almost lost our heads last year because she send us cryptic messages accompanied by 3D typographic objects. As we now know, Tanja creates 3D objects (pillows, chairs, etc) based on letter shapes, and sells them under her label Tüpo. Being a true Bello and Sauna lover, she is a heavy Underware-user. Today we found some Bello-keyrings and Sauna-bookmarkers in our mailbox. Wow. Tanja: we love you more and more!

Also in our mailbox today: issue 192 of Etapes magazine. Parlez-vous Français? Trouver l’amour dans le numéro le plus récent. Bon appétit.

1) Tell us about yourself and what you do.
We design type.

2) Describe a typical day in the studio.
Sit on our ass in front of a screen and work our butts off.

3) When you were growing up, what did you want to be?
Comic artist.

4) What was the catalyst for starting Underware?
Due to a lack of education we had too much spare time during our studies and started to create our own projects, which eventually became our daily practice.

5) What is the biggest sacrifice you have ever made?
If you always try to make the best out of every situation, nothing feels as a sacrifice.

6) What is the biggest/most common misconception about what you do?
We had to explain civil servants too often already that we don’t sell lingerie.

7) What is the lowest point of your career?
Too many embarrassing mistakes to mention, we’re still sorry for all of them.

8) What is the best advise you have ever been given?
Never trust anyone who tells that ‘it should be done like this’, there are always multiple solutions for every problem.

9) and the worst?
It should be done like that.

10) Looking back now, what advice would you give to someone like yourself?
Alles geben. 
Never give up.

11) Being a designer is tough. What keeps you going?
Scoring with soccer. I remember all my beautiful goals, even those from 25 years ago.

12) What is your biggest fear?
An obscure animal comes out of the drain, and bites off my dick when I’m sitting on a toilet.

13) Who/What do you have a bone to pick with?
God, but he is hard to reach.

14) If you were not a designer, what would you have done?
Euhm… God? Finally humanity would have a humane, self-contemplated, communicative God.

15) What would your last meal be?
All drugs I never took, just to get the experience before I die.

Thank you for your time,
Germaine

Ever wanted to have your own text engraved on a ring, but not in a clichéd Courier, Futura or Edwardian Script? Then luck is now on your side. As of today our fonts are available for superb engraving on a collection of rings, since we hooked up with the garden-fresh Typerings. Create your own ring online.

Select your ring, enter your own text, and choose from eight divergent fonts to give your words the right spirit. Yes, they’re all your favourite Underware fonts. As we always design our butts off with every curve in our typefaces, we’re delighted that the engraving on these rings looks absolutely astonishing.

Happy to share our happiness: www.typerings.com

On Sunday 19 June, Akiem will be one of the speakers at the second symposium of TypeTalks, in Poland. Tickets are available at their website, but if you unfortunately can’t make: just carry on.

Dear Bas/Sami,

This is Pound in Yiwu, China. It’s nice to know you here.I got your information from the internet, and be tempted by your funny and attractive website. So I want to contact with you further.Our com. is specialized in the production of medium and high end seamless garments.We has become one of the largest seamless manufactures and exporters here in China mainland.

For more detailed informations, pls look through our website or contact me directly. We hope we can have a trial cooperation, maybe it’s a good beginning of business between us.

The most recent copy of Communication Arts magazine arrived in our postbox today. We didn’t expect 10 full pages on Underware, especially not after we received an email from the author that due to a lack of space ‘complete sections had to be left out’. They truly love pics, but they seem to adore A-Z. Rather surprising way to present typefaces for the ‘largest international trade journal of visual communications’. Anyway, now in the bookstore, library & online (paywall-alert).