We’re all okay. Kind of. Featuring all speakers of a design conference. And yes, all of them are okay. Short movie made for a bNo-presentation in 2007. In Dutch, but simplicity doesn’t need subtitles.

Our school, Hauptschule Herbertskaul, is located in the south-west of Cologne, close to the motor-way interchange ‘Köln-West’. The German school system is divided in three skill-levels when pupils leave primary school at the age of 10: Hauptschule (low), Realschule (medium) and Gymnasium (high).

When I became a teacher at the Hauptschule Herbertskaul in 2002, I had no idea of playing baseball at all. The pupils told me that they wanted to learn it. With support of the German ‘Base- and softball-association’ we made our first experiences in regular sports lessons. We saw a chance to integrate boys and girls in one kind of sports because they don’t have any experiences and prejudices. So we made special sports offer in the following year where the pupils only play baseball. There was a big run to our new founded baseball working-group and the children had much fun to play it. As expected, there were no problems between girls and boys.

We noticed that the American professional league Major League Baseball (MLB) had a special program in Germany to hire new players for German baseball clubs. In the so called PlayBall!-league were only children playing between 10 and 13 years who are not playing in a club. In 2004 we joined this Playball!-league and played for six weeks on the field of the baseball club Cologne Cardinals. They were dressed in original MLB-Team-shirts and got lessons from professional club-trainers.

You must know that in Germany the children of low-level-educated parents mostly don’t have access to sports which is played in a club. One reason is that often they don’t have money to pay the equipment, for the yearly fee or pay the transport to travel by bus to the club. So we tried to build a bridge between school- and club-sports.

The best teams of the Playball!-league meet in summer in Cologne to play the Playball!-World-series, where the best team of Germany is played out. In a mixed team of Hauptschule Herbertskaul, a ‘Realschule’ and a Gymnasium of Cologne we won the tournament in the shirts of the MLB-Club Cleveland Indians.

After this first fantastic success there were many children trying to play baseball in our baseball team. In 2005 we reached the 3rd rank at the end of the World-series and in 2006 we won the title again.

Since 2004 we are each year invited by the mayor of the city of Frechen to get the ‘Big Sports Medal’ which is dedicated to very successful sports-teams. We got the idea to create our own shirts for our team. At the beginning I tried to make my own design. During the search for a suitable font I found ‘Bello’ by Underware in the internet. While designing the logotype, I experienced technical problems. After some email correspondence with Underware about this, they asked what for the Bello typeface is needed. After explaining the whole story, Underware ended up giving us a helping hand with the Firefox-logotype design.

During three years the children made the experience that they are one of the best school-baseball teams playing in Germany. This is very important for them because in the ‘normal’ school lessons they often come to very bad results, they have to visit one class for two years or they have problems in discipline. The more success they make with sports, the more their self-assurance is powered up.

(more…)

Hello! I’m Dennis, a young graphic designer who’s just got his first job. I still live at my parent’s house. When I have nothing to do, I pass my time rearranging my life, from student life to working life. In this case: rearranging my bookshelf. While I was doing this, my eye caught some smuthers on the cover of my beloved “Read naked” book. I think it was already this dirty when I bought it (at a fashion store, which explains), but it never bothered me this much. I decided to go clean the book in the bathroom. I rubbed it carefully with wet paper tissues. Also, I wetted some inside pages with hot water to read some hidden text, so the book got too humid to just put it back on the shelf. One of the suggested ways to dry the book was: “Microwave oven: 5-10 minutes, full power.” And actually, me being hasty, I didn’t read the rest of the line which warned: “Although the publisher succesfully tested this method, it is not recommended.”

So: 10 minutes, full power…

Again

I didn’t want to confront my parents with a strange story about washing and microwaving books, so I spent half an hour blowing, switching on the cooker hood, opening all windows and doors, running around flapping my arms, driving the smell of baked book out of the kitchen before they returned home. My copy of “Read Naked” now has a brown stain on almost every page, starting from the middle. I can’t even keep it on the bookshelf anymore, because it still smells like shoes on a barbecue.

Dennis

On June 7, 2006 we received this email.

From: ggilliard@hotmail.com
Subject: Regarding “Read Naked,” exchanging links, using sauna font
Date: June 7, 2006 10:32:38 PM GMT+02:00
To: info@underware.nl

In January, I founded a company, Saunadream, to sell saunas manufactured in Asia. While scanning the web for basic information about saunas, I read about your company’s book, “Read Naked.”
I’m just going to ask questions and not worrying about whether you are invested heavily in competing sauna companies.

1.) How do I obtain copies of your book “Read Naked?” My 2005 GM819 Gateway computer froze up everytime I tried to access the Kijhof & Lee bookstore, who to my knowledge is the only company currently selling the book.
2.) I’m considering presenting x copies of this book to the first x purchasers (I haven’t yet determined the value of “x”).
3.) I would also like to establish reciprocal (two-way) incoming links connecting www.saunadream.com and your firm’s website, www.underware.nl.
4.) I also like your “Sauna” font a great deal. Is there a word package already featuring Sauna that I can buy for my website designer, or do I have to purchase directly from your company? If so, how much would you charge to permit each page to be written using your font?

After reading this email we got curious about the daily life of a sauna dealer.
Here is his story. (more…)

From: “Iria Cunha”
Date: 3 August 2006 11:43:25 GMT+02:00
To: info@underware.nl
Subject: a present for you all

hello,
sami, bas an akiem

how are you? i’m Iria from the workshop of matosinhos-esad? do you remember?

i have a gift for you all, and i have the chance of sending you almost in hand.

my parents wil in vacation at amsterdam from 5 to 6 July, and they will take the gift.

you only have to take it at their hotel, wich is at

hotel IBIS at aeroport
street Schipholweg, 181

if you can make it tell me something.
see you, Iria

Love language by Sasson Kung

Sasson Kung graduated in 2006 at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. His final work Love Language is dealing with the problem: how can people with different languages (writing systems) communicate (and fall in love) with each other online. He has chosen for Chinese and Latin as basic languages. On the search for the perfect love-communication-tool he developed his own writing system which is combining both writing systems.

By choosing love as subject he narrowed the amount of words which you actually need to communicate (chat) with each other. His final work consists out of an online chat tool, and a keyboard mask. Each key is not representing a letter but a whole word. The whole word is displayed on the keyboard mask, so you know what you are typing. He merged the two languages in a kind of hermaphrodite sign-system. Half chinese half latin. Readable by both readers.

Here are some films:
Why is it so difficult to learn a new language?
Love Language System

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.