Utrecht based ad agency Spranq made a font environmentally friendly by making holes in the glyphs. The result is called Ecofont, and according to an article by NPR, this will save its users up to 15% in ink. The idea is that you set this font, a free download, as the standard font for printing drafts and e-mails and such. Ecofont is based on the liberally licensed Bitstream Vera font.
December 24, 2008
Ecological font
Tags: environment, fonts, GPL, ink, open source
December 19, 2008
Giant threads for knitting furniture
Bauke Knottnerus came up with these colorful, arm-thick threads for creating “interior products,” “knitted or not,” and calls ’em Phat Knits. Cory Doctorow loves this stuff and says it’s “like being miniaturized and set loose on a chunky sweater.”
Knottnerus is one of the 2008 graduates of the Design Academy Eindhoven, a prolific bunch (see here and here and here for instance).
Tags: big, Design Academy Eindhoven, knitting, threads
December 17, 2008
‘Vegetarian’ star eats chicken
While I’m looking forward to a special get together this week with a bunch of local musicians where I was asked to bring a vegetarian dish (a refreshing change), some self-proclaimed vegetarians apparently ‘omit details’ about their chosen eating patterns when it suits them. Jan Vayne, a celebrity who plugs Unox smoked sausage on television but who does not eat it, was not only nominated as one of the sexiest vegetarians of the Netherlands, but he does eat chicken every once in a while, as apparently shown on television. As far as I can read, he is not a vegetarian. He also claims not to take the ‘election’ seriously, which is obviously a good thing. I voted for columnist Leon Verdonschot; the difference is plain to see. The activists at Wakker Dier were ready to let the smoked sausage thing slip, but eating chicken and saying ‘mmm, delicious’ on television has got their forums buzzing.
And don’t get me started on the all-year-round vegetarians except at Christmas when they shove all that turkey, chicken and pâté down their gizzards gullets, claiming their loved ones didn’t want to cook separate dishes just for them and what not – you’re lying too. And there’s always fish if you want to bring your guilt down a notch or two.
(Link: vleesmagazine.nl)
Tags: Jan Vayne, Leon Verdonschot, vegetarianism
November 29, 2008
Ceramic version of disposable French fries container
These ceramic containers for French fries are apparently on sale for 1 euro each at Bas / Dirk van den Broek in Rotterdam.
As the whole world has known since the movie Pulp Fiction, the Dutch eat their fries with mayonnaise. Hey, don’t knock what you haven’t tried! The only acceptable way to eat fries is from a cone-shaped paper bag, with the mayo on top. Since a long while many snack bars have switched however to serving their fries in plastic boxes with two compartments, a big one for the fries and a small one for the mayo. What kind of statement the Dirk van den Broek supermarket chain would be trying to make by having a sale of ceramic versions of these disposable containers Trendbeheer doesn’t tell.
Photo: Niels Post / Trendbeheer, some rights reserved.
Tags: ceramics, French fries, fries, mayonnaise, traits
November 23, 2008
New Braille postage stamps
Graphic designer René Put has designed new Dutch postage stamps with Braille called “Voel je mee” (“Sympathize”, but also a play on words with “to feel along”) for the visually impaired. The stamps combine letters with the Braille alphabet featuring missing letters filled in with Braille ones. The postage stamps pay tribute to Frenchman Louis Braille whose devised this alphabet 200 years ago.
Modern Dutch stamps have always been quite interesting. Here’s a unique one, the Dutch silver stamp, which was minted not printed with real silver.
(Link: rtl.nl)
Tags: Braille, postage stamps, silver stamp, visually impaired
November 3, 2008
Soft bathtub like sinking into a sofa
Dutch designer Maren Hartveld presented a soft bathtub called the Tender Tub at the Design Academy Eindhoven graduate show in the Netherlands earlier this month. “Bringing a new meaning to sinking into one’s tub,” says Hartveld. “A free-standing soft bathtub made from polyurethene coated foam rubber; not cold and hard like the average bathtub, but soft and warm, and comfortable like a sofa”.
At first glance, the corners are scary, many people commented, and give the impression that you could poke an eye out. It also looks difficult to clean, others said. And seeing the thing in use would be a good idea. It does look cool.
(Link: dezeen.com)
Tags: Design Academy Eindhoven, Eindhoven, tub
November 2, 2008
Geometric family tree as birth announcement card
Piet Schreuders, him of the Poezenkrant (which is not about cats), designed this card in 1984 on occasion of the birth of his daughter Anna. It’s a family tree that goes back four generations, pink branches signifying girls, blue ones boys. It’s one of the reasons that the Fool’s Gold editors clamour for a Schreudermania book.
Ah, speaking of Fool’s Gold. People forgot to tell my clients that there’s an economic crisis supposed to be going on, and as a result I haven’t really had the time to review the latest Zone 5300. Issue 83 is all about Outsider Art. Like every other issue of Zone 5300. Which they sort of acknowledge in the foreword, then still power on.
The good thing though is that as part of that whole Outsider Art thing Fool’s Gold got two extra pages in full colour. Comics are mostly by the regular contributors. Lamelos’ Sam Peeters goes solo this time with In de schaduw van mijn lul (In the shade of my penis), which manages to pack armed robbery, monkeys, slipping-over-banana jokes, faeces, swamp things, camp fires, steaming hot sex, and a gruesome beheading all in six small pages, in that order. I thought you ought to know.
Zone 5300 also checks out how Teun Hocks, illustrator to amongst others The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine is doing these days. He’s doing… wait, buy the damn magazine already!
Tags: announcements, births, cards, Fool's Gold, Piet Schreuders, Zone 5300
November 1, 2008
Geeked out coin wins design comp
Stani Michiels, artist by day and Python hacker by night, created a five euro coin using only free software for a design competion issued by the Dutch mint, and won. The coin, commemorating a rich Dutch architectural tradition, should be available nowish.
The coin’s obverse consists of a portrait of the queen made up out of the names of famous architects, and the reverse displays an outline of the country that doubles as a skyline made by positioning architecture books in a circle.
Michiels — a Belgian responsible for SPE-IDE, a Python IDE, and Phatch, a photo editor — outlines all the little design details in a long blog post, including the software he used (Python, of course) and the calculations and Google search results that went into this design. Unfortunately the mint would not allow Michiels to release the designs under the GPL license.
The Netherlands has a long tradition of meaningful and elaborately designed money, as we touched upon earlier.
Via LWN.net.
October 20, 2008
Amsterdam fence wins Dutch Design Award 2008
After having found out in July all about this nature accommodating fence on the Olympiaplein in Amsterdam, designed by Ruud-Jan Kokke, it was announced last Saturday that it won a Dutch Design Award 2008.
Out of 700 nominations, Kokke’s fence won a public space award for his one-kilometer-long fence around a big park/football field. It is the second time this year that the fence won a prize, as Kokke was also awarded the public award of the Design to Business Award 2008 together with the Oud-Zuid District earlier this year.
(Link AT5)
Tags: Amsterdam, Design to Business Award, Dutch Design Award, Olympiaplein, Ruud-Jan Kokke
October 10, 2008
Dutch designers in London
Bright.tv caught up with Dutch designers (video, mostly Dutch) who had stayed in London after finishing their studies at the Royal College of Art. Among them Henny van Nistelrooy who made this table out of cloth.
Photo via Dezeen.com.
Tags: London