Here’s the sad thing: there are thousands of those movies. A few of them became cult favourites, like Barbarella, Pink Flamingos or Plan 9 from Outer Space, but those are the exceptions. The ones that disappoint have now long been forgotten. All that effort, all that energy, and all of it has rained away.

So I was thinking about movements, stylistic durability, functional durability and aesthetic throwbacks, and was contacted by ULTRA2012 to take part in a group exhibition. The exhibition and music show would be a kind of throwback, and a podium for the new generation. That sounded perfect for me.

Here are four lost movies, which you don’t need to see. The titles just gave it all away, didn’t they?

All are available for sale as prints, sized 42×30cm. Get in touch.

Dress shirts, neckties and cuff links

Fashion as a design form is very self-explanatory. A stylistic choice is an equally functional choice. The way something looks defines what you wear it for, how you wear it, or whether you wear it at all. These three shirts are explorations of function as style as function. The three details that change the shirts are small, but change the entire shirt. The detail is the design.

The first shirt is a normal button-down shirt, but it comes with a strip of cotton with button holes on one side. Button it on the shirt, and your shirt goes from standard to special. The buttons disappear.

The second shirt has a regular collar, but it’s detachable. Unbutton the collar and replace it with a tuxedo collar, for example. You change from work shirt to gala ball, with one small change.

The third shirt has buttons on the sleeves. You can wear it normally, but roll up the sleeves and button them up, and your indoors work shirt becomes a gardening, sports or cooking shirt.

The neckties and cuff links all sold out during the exhibition week. I’m not considering remaking the designs from this project, but open for any project involving enamel. I’ve fallen in love with the bright, durable colors and the crafting process.

Antikva, a typeface revival and expansion with a romantic touch

In 1948, Czech letter cutter Oldřich Menhart designed and released the typeface Antikva Manuskript. When I found the specimen for the regular style, there was no publicly available version, so I set about to digitize it. I ran into a few printing errors and systemised the details. It had become an interpretation of the original. Considering that Menhart intended the design to be a combination between a classical book typeface and his own calligraphic hand, I thought it logical to then design an italic that would combine his regular style with my handwriting. Thus I bridged 63 years in one typeface, building upon a solid foundation.

A novella, ‘Plamen’, about a fire-eater in the circus

Plamen is a short story about Plamen Georgios, the fire-eater in a traveling circus. He is madly in love with Iskra, the acrobat’s daughter. Over the course of 64 pages, you’ll get to know the members of the circus and their views on life. Above all, though, it’s a short story that can only be told as a short story. Copies are still available (written in Dutch, 64 pages, paperback).

I interned for Nordaaker, in Oslo, during the months of April, May and June of 2010. Upon returning home, I let my ideas simmer a while. I picked up the thread early August and compiled this report. Part a portfolio, part an essay on work, part an essay on life, it’s thirty pages of colourful and typographic and argumentative fun-times.

Download the PDF (it’s in English).

I participated in the Hoogtij exhibition series with the girls from LAPt/m. I have been obsessed with title screens in old films for a long time. There’s something poetically silly about announcing or explaining parts of the movie. I connected that logic back to the origin of the structured story, the Greek tragedy. I tried to envision a few of the classic hooks in the tragedy as titles for a fifties film.