As seen in The Hague

Houseboats!

There are plenty of these in Amsterdam, but I hadn't seen any in The Hague until last week. These one are just a couple streets from mine & Ross' apartment.

This kind of looks like a flooded trailer part, but it's highly coveted living.

Smurfen!

I have no idea if this is news at home, but 2008 is the year of the Smurfs' 50th birthday. They are from Belgium, so it's kind of a big deal around here. For example, at the start of the year, Brussels had a huge public celebration with a gigantic Smurfberry cake. The photo above was taken in the Comic Strip Museum in Brussels.

Albert Heijn (the Safeway of Holland) has a Smurf promotion. For every €15 you spend in the store, you get a little plastic toy Smurf. They come in sealed yellow plastic, so you can't pick and choose, you just get what you get. I wasn't really paying too much attention to it until Ross brought this home the other day:


And now I'm obsessed. This marketing scheme is shamelessly working on me. We've since added this guy to the collection:


And here they are together:


Here's all of the 15 collectibles:


And the one I most want is (obviously) Smurfette, or as she's known around here, Smurfin. I'd also like a Papa Smurf (Grote Smurf), and a Brainy Smurf (Brilsmurf). I'll keep you posted as the collection grows, cause I know you're all as excited about this as I am.

Syntax and Colours and Lions, Oh My!

A long overdue update from the past few weeks:

My final project is well underway and keeping me busy day and night. I think I should be able to post some images soon. Apart from the project, we've attended a few lectures that, while always educational, aren't always the most riveting of experiences. This was certainly true of a week long workshop given by Miguel Sousa from Adobe. 6 hours a day for 4 days we sat on uncomfortable stools taking in details of type development and production. Miguel did an excellent job and the experience was incredibly valuable, but unless you are someone who gets excited by command line programming (which I am not) you'd have been tired too. Here's proof:



Another exciting event that occurred about a month ago, centered around a trip to the studio of this designer:


For those of you who don't know him, Rick is a very important person in recent graphic design history, namely for being a founding member of this magazine and studio:


If you still aren't sure, maybe you'll recognize this well-known poster:



After a morning visit to his studio in Rotterdam, we had lunch, visited a Modernist architectural relic, then made the short walk over to this place:



That's right ladies and gentlemen: Studio Dumbar! Perhaps one of the most noteworthy studios in the world, they do work ranging from cultural clients like the Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, the Dutch Police, and big time corporate clients like KPN. In my opinion, the diversity in clients and projects they take on is a big reason why they have been so successful. It seems strikingly rare that a studio's mandate is to work with both cultural and corporate clients. Not only that, they insist that each designer on staff MUST work in both sectors. Here is an example of why Dutch design is so highly regarded (sorry for the bad photos):


Keep in mind that these posters are for the Amsterdam Symphony. It's rare to see such vibrant and daring work done for a client that is so deeply rooted in history and tradition. I'm used to seeing the usual stuffy earth tones with some sort of nature motif applied to this kind of work. In my opinion, the need to move beyond conventions and expectations based on the way something has been portrayed in the past is a typically Dutch approach to Design. You don't have to go far to see other examples of this. In fact, the design of the cars and bikes for the Dutch Police (also by Studio Dumbar) are a perfect example of how daring they are with such conservative clients.

For more of their work, including what they did for the Dutch Police visit their website at studiodumbar.com

On a totally different (and considerably more recent) note, those crocuses that Grace documented a few weeks ago have spread like wildfire and now blanket this field in purple.


Since Grace's parents will be visiting in two weeks, I really hope this is a sign of things to come. Maybe that tree in the top right will even have some life on it. Maybe.

As seen in The Hague

Canadians!

As seen in The Hague

This is a bad photo, but I wanted to post it anyway. What you're looking at is basically the Dutch equivalent of a minivan. A Mama and Papa are each have a kinder on their bicycle. Mom has the baby strapped to her chest, and the Dad has a little seat at the handlebars for the toddler. We see this everyday, every time we leave the house.

What happens if they have more kids, you ask? Well, as you can see, the Mom has room for one more on the back of her bike, as would the father. Sometimes you see two little seats – one in front of the other – which would be the solution for twins. And of course, children get their own bike as soon as possible. There are also variations of a wagon-like bicycle which are handy for transporting numerous children and animals.

And what about helmets you ask? Well, we're in Holland, my friends.
Helmets are for tourists.

Nothing new

I haven't been doing a great job of posting lately, but there's just nothing really to report. Ross is busy with school, and I'm just working. I'm currently finishing a 400-page book about the importance of alliances – something I've come to learn as integral to the Dutch business model. This book should be quite a nice portfolio piece for a couple reasons. First of all, there are many diagrams and figures I had to complete by hand. This was a challenge because I'm not an illustrator, but I'm quite happy with how they were resolved. And secondly, I think this book looks better than it is because it's in anther language. When you're not distracted by how dry the text is, you just see the design.

The most complicated illustration required me to create an expressionless, simplified person that was neither a man or a woman that had both dreams and realizations at the same time. Why this was so hard for me, I'll never know, and when you see the result, neither will you. Every time I came up with something I was happy with my employer would say, "but that's a man." And back to the drawing board I went.

Here is a glimpse into my process:


And the chosen person in context:

Yup, it's a stick figure. Can you believe I even went to art school?

My valentijnsdag gift to Ross

As you can imagine, we've taken thousands of photos over the last six months. After awhile, they all start to look the same . . .