KPN

KPN is the main telecom company in The Netherlands. All design and art commissions are managed through their Art and Design department, K&V.

Every year KPN publishes a calender for internal use. The calender informs employees about holidays, weeknumbers, days, etc. Traditionally the design is strictly typographic, no photography or frills. LettError was asked to design the 1998 and later the 1999 calendars. Faced with the daunting task of having to design 12 months by hand, we developed a program that generates the monthly pages with all the correct information. The design of the calendar and the development of the program went hand in hand. Changes in the design reflected in changes in the application. Rather than extrapolate how the calendar would look based on one or two months, we could evaluate the design by looking at the finished product.

By writing the program we took care of all production issues and were free to design the calendar until the hour it had to be delivered to the printer. In a conventional production schedule, the design precedes the production: once the creative work is done, the tedious repetitive work is left over. The program takes care of all the non-design work, making sure the months start of the right day of the week, checking all royal holidays etc.

The client learned about this program and offered us the commision for the 1999 calendar as well. The design did not have to change dramatically.

The typefaces are Martin Majoor's Telefonts, KPN's typefaces specially designed for the telephone books.