me news
living for posters
last friday i went for a random walk through town and came across a small vintage poster gallery that i had never heard of before, one of the people whom i spoke to turned out to be none other than celebrated poster designer gielijn escher who very kindly signed a copy of his book for me
gielijn (who is indeed related to the other ‘escher’) began his career at an early age and having even worked himself as a bill poster he has amassed an enormous collection including many pre-war german artists such as ‘lucian bernhard’ ‘hans rudi erdt’ and ‘ludwig hohlwein’, i actually have an appointment with him next week to acquire some (more recent) dutch posters from his vast collection, great news :)
same perspective, different view (20th july ’12)
this is a post i wrote as contributor to the amsterdam ad blog ‘something related to amsterdam’ column, originally posted on the 20th of july ’12…
same perspective, different view
One of the things that makes the canal district in Amsterdam so beautiful (to me) is the combination of a master plan and complete randomness. The general layout is symmetrical and ordered; yet new houses have been squeezed in where a gap once was or tacked on to other houses at different times, with a totally different aesthetic and sense of proportion. There are plenty of dazzlingly weird views to be seen and even after twenty years I still see new things and odd details every single day. It is no coincidence that the whole area has been placed on the ‘Unesco’ world heritage program.
One of my favourite corners is where the Herengracht meets the Leidsegracht. (+52° 22′ 4.18″, +4° 53′ 13.11″) Every morning this collection of angular buildings, crooked lines and church spires seems to shift perspective as you pass by. In fact there is so much to take in that it must have been years before I even spotted the little red man hiding on the roof staring into the distance with his hands behind his back. Have you seen him yet?
isotope
portugese designer fábio duarte martins first contacted me 2 years back & again yesterday with the latest update on his ‘isonorm revamp’ project isotope, as a heavy user of that particular font i am well aware of its many flaws… something which fortunately fábio is aiming to rectify along with expanding ‘isotope’ into a proper font family, great stuff looking forward to seeing the finished product soon (many thanks for the advance copy too fabio)
a view on perspective
here’s a new post i wrote as a contributor to the amsterdam ad blog ‘something related to amsterdam’ column, today…