Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig

In February 1941, non-Jewish people protested against the persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime by holding a general strike in Amsterdam. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands wanted to remember the role of the citizens of Amsterdam during World War II and created a motto consisting of the Dutch words “Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig”, meaning “Valiant, Steadfast, Compassionate”. 

“Never will I forget the emotion that overwhelmed us, when eyewitnesses first notified us in London of how the entire population had actually turned against the inhumanity of the cruel tyrant.” – Queen Wilhelmina

On March 29, 1947, Wilhelmina presented the motto as part of the coat of arms of Amsterdam to the city government.

As a boy I recall my father mounting this sticker on a board and using a coping saw to meticulously cut it out. It’s hung up in my family’s home all this time.

Amsterdam Tattoo Convention

We just got in the latest poster for the Amsterdam Tattoo Convention, and it’s already framed and hanging up with the previous years posters.

http://www.tattooexpo.eu/en/amsterdam/2016
And the posters from previous years featuring my girlfriend.

Done by an artist “Veni Vidi Vince”.

The photographer was photographed by the photographer

My sister was looking through photos of the neighbourhood we grew up in in Amsterdam. She saw one of the mayor at a ceremony for driving in the first pile for the office building slated to be built behind our place. He was in a 1910 Spijker, a car that had been produced in a factory that had stood there in the early part of the 20th century. She saw that someone was standing on what she figured to be our balcony. Now, our father was a serious shutterbug. She looked through all of our photos and found the photo that he took the same day. Same scene, two perspectives. The photographer was photographed by the photographer.

One of the best things I ever did.

I had just turned 8, and I decided I wanted to go to Schiphol to look at the planes. By myself. I had gone out there a few times before with my dad, but it was the summer holidays and I wanted to go on a little adventure. I figured out the route on a map of Amsterdam, and set out to ride from one end of Amsterdam to the other. My mom had packed me a lunch, the map, the phone numbers of some of my parents friends and family along the way, some money, and off I went. At about the halfway point, at the old Olympic stadium, there was extensive road construction, streets all torn up, road signs down, and I got all discombobulated. Turned around and went home.
 
Upset that I hadn’t made it, the next week, I set off again. Figured out different routes around the area that had given me trouble. And this time I made it. Watched the planes for a while, turned around and went home.

People are aghast when I tell them this. “Your parents let you ride your bicycle across a big city by yourself when you were 8?!”

Sure.

Granted, it’s a city with excellent bike infrastructure. I guess they figured I was a fairly bright kid. But I set a goal, used map reading skills, overcame difficulties, got some exercise, etc.

What do you think builds a kids abilities and self esteem? That, or taking them to the mall to buy them a video game because they ate their supper without crying about being lucky enough to have something to eat?

Really?

I still think back fondly to that experience, and realize how much it taught me.

The Untold History of the Amsterdamse ‘Krul’ Letter

I’ve done a typeface based on early twentieth century advertising lettering I saw in so many photos of Amsterdam, but there was another type of distinctive lettering common in Amsterdam,
http://ilovetypography.com/2012/06/18/krul-the-untold-historyof-the-amsterdamse-krulletter/
(And the sort of lettering I based my typeface on can be seen in the fourth photo.)

Then check out the typeface based on the tradition.
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/re-type/krul/

Wij Zijn Vrij!

These photos make me unabashedly emotional. Taken two years before I was born, about a block from where I was born and lived for a decade. I think everyone was out for this auspicious day. In 1940 it was the route the Germans took when they invaded Amsterdam. Five years later it was the route the Canadians took when they liberated Amsterdam. The street is now known as Vrijheids Laan (Freedom Lane).

The bridge in the third photo is the bridge I mention in the second and third book reviewed here, the Berlage Brug.

Wij Zijn Vrij! We Are Free!

New Amsterdam Tattoo Museum Close to Completion

Hanky Panky and his crew are almost done the new Amsterdam Tattoo Museum.

http://tattooartistmagazineblog.com/2011/10/27/new-amsterdam-tattoo-museum-opening-tattooartist-magazine-blog/

I’ll definitely have to swing by for a look if I ever get myself over to the hometown again.

Typeface Design – Amsterdam

My initial forays into type consisted of hacking Letraset, distorting it on photocopiers, playing around with it on stat cameras, then adding to that with tech pens, etc. Then in early 88 I started drawing type on the computer. I was doing fanzines, gig posters, logos, tape covers, etc. and I knew instinctively that I wanted to use typefaces other than the ones I had at my disposal. My choices at the time were very limited, and nothing I had access to accurately conveyed the look I thought would be appropriate for say an experimental electronic combo.

So I started drawing my own typefaces.

Now in those days I had access to a 512K Mac. Not much computing power. After that I got my hands on a Mac with 2MB of RAM and a 20MB hard disc. Still not that much computing power. To facilitate production, the stuff I drew was fairly simplistic. Being able to step and repeat elements made life simpler. I didn’t have any pretenses that I was able to create complex calligraphic scripts, and these early orthogonal typefaces were a good starting point. They gave me something that could give my graphic design a distinctive look.

Amsterdam is a compendium of early experiments. I had about 9 completed geometric typefaces, some incomplete ideas and figured one like this was enough. Took what I liked out of them, and also culled some stuff I had done for logos and headlines. Quite deliberately I went for a look that wasn’t so harmonious. I turned it onto a monocase, added a few missing elements, and created the different weights and variants. This was done in 93.

Named after the city I was born in.

6° of Cameldam

A part on my CamelBak broke a few years back. The Hydrolock, which acts as a shutoff, to prevent the inadvertent leaking of all of your water from the bite valve.

Rats.

I’m a regular at several outdoor and military gear related forums, so I asked if anyone else had run into this. Were they successful in repairing it, or did they have to bite the bite valve and buy a new one.

One poster who lists his location as being Amsterdam NL, says “Hey I have the very part you’re talking about, it’s of no use to me, it’s still in the packaging, and since you’re a fellow Dutchy, send me an email with your addy, and it’s yours.”

Wow, neat.

I send him an email with my address, thank him profusely and ask him where in Amsterdam he is, telling him where I lived.

He writes me back, and tells me that he lives in a town just on the outskirts, Diemen.

Hey I know Diemen really well. My dad coached baseball there, so my every weekend was spent in that town.
He writes me back to tell me that he used to play little league ball and baseball as a teenager with an organization called T.I.W. in Diemen.
Okay that’s weird, my dad coached for T.I.W. Turns out he played at the baseball field that I practically grew up on.

When his package arrived, I thought the address looked quite familiar. Turns out he lives in an apartment building one over from the building my brother lived in during the 70s.

6° of PostContemporarity

I went to a Clan of Xymox concert in Toronto in 1989.

After the show, my friend Len introduces me to two guys that he went to college with.

Obviously twins, but trying hard not to look like twins.

We start to talk and it turns out that they were the people behind a record that I had bought recently, Empirical Sleeping Consort.

One of them mentions that he would like to go back stage and say hi to the band.

“Yeah me too. They’re from Holland and so am I and I think it would be neat to say hello.”

“Hey my brother’s girlfriend is from Holland too.”

We start to chat, in Dutch and she asks me where in Holland I’m from.

“Amsterdam.”

“Yes me too. Where abouts in Amsterdam?”

“In the new south district, the river borough (all the streets were named after rivers in Holland)”

“I don’t know the neighbourhood I’m from, but I was born in and lived in the KrommeMijdrecht Straat.”

Music was playing in the club, so I wasn’t certain I had heard her right. But I got a funny tingle down my spine. “What did you say?” I asked incredulously.

“The KrommeMijdrecht Straat.”

I must have had the most stunned look on my face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“This is really going to freak you out, but I was born in the KrommeMijdrecht Straat!”

“Whaaat!”

(Now this is not a street that ran the length and breadth of the city, but a one block street!)

When we explained to the English speakers around us what had just transpired, they were equally amazed.

“Do you remember the number you lived at? What year were you born in?” I asked.

“I can’t remember the street number, and I was born in 1967.”

Same year I was born in.

“What school did you go to?”

“We moved to a different city when I was three.”

We continued to talk for a while longer and exchanged addresses (which much to my chagrin, I lost shortly there after.)

About five years later I walked into my friend Jarkko’s house, and there are two twins trying hard not to look like twins sitting on his couch.

“I know you two.”

They were looking at me with one of those I remember you, but why looks. “You do?”

“Yeah. Your girlfriend was born on the same street as me!”

“I remember you!!” They both shouted in unison.

And we’ve remained friends ever since.