A new font in the making

I finally found the time to do some work on a new font. This one will be called Mokum Schip, in honour of Michel de Klerk and his fabulous building called "Het Schip" in Amsterdam. Translation is not that difficult, it's just "The Ship".
In this complex, which has a triangular layout, there is room for all kinds of public spaces, like a school and a Post Office. The school is still in use, the Post Office is now part of the museum. You could buy stamps there, post letters and make telephone calls. To do the latter, a special procedure was followed. In the Post Office there were two Phone Booths. One was behind the counter and that was used to make the connection. When that was done, the connection was rerouted to the "Spreekcel", located in the public area of the Office. The person making the phone call went into the Spreekcel (phone booth) and talked with the other party. With the door closed, for privacy.
For this booth a special font was designed, as you can see on the picture. That sample will form the basis of my new font.

Sailing along to a surprise

Last Saturday I spend the afternoon on a boat, going through the canals of Amsterdam. We also navigated the IJ, the water between the centre of the city and the Northern part (yes, it's called Amsterdam-Noord). Just between to gulps of beer I noticed something in the corner of my eye. Looking closer I discovered a peculiar piece of lettering.


Would that perhaps be....???
On closer inspection it turned out that it was indeed my font Mokum Tooneel, which was used for the new sign on Cafe de Pont (Freely translated the Ferry Pub). The owner was looking for a nice font to use on her newly acquired Cafe, which was built in 1928. Mokum Tooneel fitted the requirements. Shortly I will go over there, to take some pictures of the giant wooden letters.