Many thanks to Bas Rozema, for lots of tech support and design assistance
When some expressions aren’t that ubiquitous anymore, their valuation increases. In dominantly digital times, we appreciate even more the classic arts of stationery.
Aah, stationery! Some of us feel that rare quickening when we walk past a shop-window filled with envelopes, fountain pens, ribbons, scissors, tape dispensers, notebooks, pencil sharpeners…
Or when we waltz into a department store with an entire floor dedicated to the most luscious curation of pen trays, clerk desks, banker lamps, staplers, desk tops (I mean real desk-tops).
The cream to top off the collection: a custom signature wax seal and embossing stamp.
When was the last time you visited a friend, went through his library, picked out a book, opened it and saw there on the title page his own Ex Libris embossed in the paper?
Weren’t you the slightest envious?
Or, when friends announce their wedding, and you receive a rich thick envelope on the doormat, sealed with an untidily dripped-on dollop of crimson colored wax. With their own purposely-designed logo stamped in it.
I guess there’s another reason for the great value of attention that this type of message engenders: here we cross the barrier of matter and information.
Because, when we can feel the relief with our fingertips, the spirit contents of the message and the carrier simultaneously flow together in your brain, through separate connected senses.
I have long been pondering where to start with the foundation for the designs of my own emboss stamp and wax seal.
I knew that I wanted to evoke some of that classic, traditional notion: every prince, count or duke had his own wax seal; when you receive an envelope of me, you’ll know it’s me.
And you know you’re going to sit down and take the time to open and read it.
A similar attention to detail is rendered to consumption as production of the object. (Likewise, with a flimsily thrown-together sandwich we’re not prone to minutely savour every bite and crumb)
And now, to the matter at hand.
The creation history of my symbols.
I based my wax seal on the coat-of-arms of my family. For the embossing stamp I chose the original blueprint of the house I live in.
Distilled to its essence. Re-imagined in this time.
I took out all the ornaments and decorations. Not only don’t they fit on such a small surface, also, I wanted to translate the classic idiom to the aesthetics of now. For both the stamp and seal.
Although all those traditional swirls and leaves and twillie-twallie and dillie-dallie might call upon a certain feeling of heritage and tradition, I wanted to introduce a new and fresh (re-branded so to speak) style set, and to speak in another atmosphere, that touches on a more modern reception.
Christoph Noordzij spoke about this at the very first edition of Good Monday. He advised all current generation designers to step away from the computer from time to time, and get their hands dirty again. Feel the materials you’re working with.
In the case of Van Elmpt’s blueprint of my house, this meant manually drawing on plastic transparent overhead sheet with a thin black pen.
When afterwards digitized, I did not smoothe out the lines, to keep a sense of artisanal craftsmanship.
In terms of creative, concept and copy, I was already very comfortable in the job of weeding out all unnecessary elements. In other words, I was already very much used to applying ‘schrapschap’ (Dutch, weeding out, scrap all unnecessary elements).
But now I sat down on the graphic chair.
I found the original 1915 drawing in the Groninger Archives. Van Elmpt was more or less the city architect back then.
(I’m still searching for the blueprint of Van Elmpt’s drawings for the Saint Egbert Chapel of Schiermonnikoog — who could help me further?)
For the Bronts coat-of-arms, I wanted to twist it to a more modern and minimal (let’s say timeless?) expression and take the classic elements and import them into the 21st century. Without all those flimsy finnicky furry leaves and old heraldic elements.
A faint glimmer of by-gone times, in which Holmes would say to Watson “Yes, of course, that’s Mr. Bronts of Deli Square.” And the mail man knew who I was and where to deliver the mail.
Again, lots of ‘schrapschap’ here, so almost all elements were left on the cutting room floor. The shield with three fleur-de-lys remained, as did our motto Obligatione victor (Conqueror with obligation).
Now it’s here for future generations, unless they come up with something more suitable to their tastes and needs.
