Being European, we will never understand Halloween, that stupid party. Although it remains an – inescapable – American event, we wouldn’t consider a book printed with blood a true Halloween-like publication.

Probably dressed up dogs are much more suitable for Halloween, right? But our favourite typographic Halloween creation is made by André Mora, who spend some hours with his pumpkin to cut the Yes/No oscillator out.

Unfortunately you can’t even eat this, so we’ll skip Halloween and wait for typographic Sinterklaas creations instead. Yummie.

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The latest issue of Publish magazine does not only contain a main article about Underware, we also made a new oscillator for their cover. After creating an oscillator in the past which can be read as Yes and/or No, we created another oscillator for this special typographic issue with the same words in Dutch, Ja and/or Nee. Kun jij dit lezen?

Next step is of course French: Oui/Non. Spanish: Sí/No. Or  worse, Finnish: Kyllä/Ei. Now that’s a challenge!

Hubba-hubba, today it’s exactly 10 years since we released our first typeface. Our website was pre-1.0, we still had a fax, we played music on CD’s, were super happy with our 4GB mega-sized external hard disk, none of us was balding.

Dolly. Introduced with a party-hardy, she steadily grows to become a stayer in the world of book typography. Instead of giving Dolly her own Twitter-account for her birthday, we promised her some extra weights and styles. Makes her much happier. Still some patience needed before her makeover is finished though…

For hardcore Dolly-lovers: here are some Dolly illustrations from our grubby archives.

Some months ago we offered our mailing list five free rings (worth 200 Euro each). Because we’d just hooked up with Typerings, anybody could win a free ‘alles geben’ ring. The only thing you had to do was telling us what ‘alles geben’ truly means to you. Simple.

 
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During the Now we are talking Festival the third edition of the CorelCup took place, the one and only football tournament for Dutch Designers (edition 01 & 02). Because of the beautiful weather it was the first time that it took place in the open air. Maybe we can blame the surface at the beachside of Scheveningen, but the average level was disgraceful by any standard. Luckily all participants perfectly understood that the CorelCup is not about winning. It’s about style. It’s the perfect opportunity to gain and loose respect. #winning was definitely not a trending topic at the CorelCup.

The final between team “Ampersand” and team “Weet Ik Veel” was miserably won by team “Ampersand” through very effective defensive football & masculine counters: 6-2. Clear numbers. Lousy style.

Winners of the CorelCup 3.0

Team Ampersand (Bart-Jan Verhoef, Jan-Paul Koudstaal & Res Zangger). They have won the petty challenge trophy, and are invited to defend the trophy at the fourth edition of the CorelCup.

Consolation prizes:

Category Best Bicycle Kick*:

Team Pilsner (captain Ozhan Ates)

Category Best Gallery Play*:

Team Weet Ik Veel (captain Lukas van Buuren)

The consolation prize is a unique, 100% legal software package called CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5*. Both these teams are invited to design the poster and announcements for the next CorelCup with their new software package. Can’t wait to see what you can make with this €700-package. Remember, it’s all about style.

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.