Illusie 1991 – 2006 at van Stockum, Den Haag

Probably you do know the bookstore van Stockum still from the extreme book testing. For those who don’t: van Stockum is the design bookstore in Den Haag, located close to the central station.
Bart Lut, the young store manager, is always open for new ideas and he is always trying to stimulating the local (design)culture.
So whenever you are in the Hague, please take a look at his well sorted store, and say hello.

More info about the Illusie 1991 – 2006 book here.

Whenever you’re around in Amsterdam, visit the bookshop Nijhof & Lee, specialised in design books. Very nice people, very nice shop, and yes, nice shop windows too…

A ilusão dos Underware – exhibition at ESAD, Porto. (05.2006–03.2007)

In the city centre of Den Haag (Holland) a cultural epicentre is located at De Illusie, a house which is squatted for more than fifteen years. The building generates concerts, exhibitions, performances, lectures, parties and all kind of cultural events. Next to that, more than 25 people live in the house, and many artists have their atelier on the ground floor. As the building is not an official institution, it’s easy and quick for many people to organise (and visit) events. From a Byzantine choir to the naked drummer, anything can happen. The occupants vary from photographers, musicians, owner of a record label, artists or flamenco dancers to metal engineers and anybody in between.

This exhibition belongs to a book which notifies the last 15 years of De Illusie. Next to a random partial selection of pictures covering this period, individual typographic interpretations of every occupant of the house have been made by Underware. And yes, we also have our studio in this building.

The exhibition ‘A ilusão dos Underware’ is organized by Sérgio Correia.

From: “Harrison Bello”
Date: 28 september 2005 1:43:57 GMT+02:00
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Subject: COMPLIMENTS

MR HARISON BELLO
ZENITH BANK PLC.
LAGOS-NIGERIA
+234 80426 72241

Dear Friend,
I am MR HARISON BELLO, Regional Manager of Zenith Bank PLC Lagos-Nigeria. I have urgent and very confidential business proposal, which I know, might interest you.
(more…)

The best part of the auto – by Erik Olde Hanhof

The best auto memories I have are visiting the showroom with my dad, when I was ten years or so. We lived quite a bit away from his work, which forced him to drive many kilometres every year. This made it very attractive for us to yearly trade-in our car for a new one. Mostly we ended up with the same car as the year before, but to get to that point we visited many weird brands for an extensive test drive.

Smell of new varnish, unlocking clicks of the doorknob, big withered plants and talkative salesmen. I enjoyed drinking my glass of Coca-Cola in the showroom, while men were playing the sales-game. The contradiction of the silent, parked cars and what they are meant for; tearing, holidays, driving through heavy weather, carrying grandpa’s and grandma’s, that’s what I liked. Whenever I entered a car and closed the door, I was inside an inside.

After the decision was made at home, I got the brochures. Filled with calculations of resale value, extra costs for accessories and additional cc’s. I stored them underneath my bed, and let myself being carried away in the stories of the images. Photos with fun, technique, pleasure, safety, family warmth and friendship.

Just recently I found those brochures again. I was back in 1980. Interiors, dashboards, settings and nonentities, all old acquaintances. Every trade his own happy world. The best part of the car remains the brochure.

What to do if you’re asked for the graveyard session on a conference (TypeCon 2004)? Sunday morning, extremely early. Let’s wake everybody up with a short introduction, which was made the night before in our hotel room.

More work by Indian sign-painters from Himachal Pradesh, northern India. For a more personal approach, go and take a look at the other sign painting examples in this blog. There you can for example see the work of Manish Kumar, who politely painted Underware’s logotype in a small town street in northern India.

India is covered with hand painted signs; shop titles, highway advertisements, movie posters and even license plates on cars are done by hard boiled sign-painters. Manish Kumar, 33, came to the small village of Rewalsar, Himachal Pradesh, for a month to paint seven new signs for local shops. To work as a sign painter in northern India, one must be familiar with English, Hindi and Tibetan scripts.

Manish is the second eldest brother of a family of four brothers and three sisters. 14 years ago his big brother taught him the basic lettering skills, likewise for the younger brothers, and later, for his own three sons. Currently, all seven men work for the family company, Artline Studio, at Mandi (a winding 24 km road down from Rewalsar), and are the best known sign painters in town. Manish himself has an 8-year old ‘baby’ and a 4-year old son. And a wife of course.

Sami was lucky to meet Manish while he was in the middle of lettering for a kiosk. After a short discussion with the ‘video/film maker’, Manish found himself painting one more sign, for Underware. Thank you, Manish!

—
If you want to get in contact with Manish, please write to:
Manish Kumar
Artline Studio
Ram Nagar, Distt. Mandi (H.P.), India