About us

Overveen, 23 October 2016

Friends!

35 years friendship, 4 hours of interviews, countless house styles, posters, videos, books, magazine and logos had to be pressed together into a few paragraphs for the honours gallery.

A nice, snoring ordinary little text is to come.

In my modest opinion, that's the very, very last thing you deserve.

I almost find it an insult.

Because there was nothing ordinary about what you did.

Everything about you was (and is, thank God) extraordinary.

Eugene Bay eloquently articulated it by calling your work "non-traditional and undogmatic."

Neville Brody also did not keep silent and even described Koeweiden

Postma as "great," "over the top," "organized chaos."

Never did you let others put you in a box.

Not a single label endured.

At best, you could say that you already were cross-over when the word was yet to be invented.

We're talking somewhere in the early 80s.

When you were designing Vinyl. The logo of the RoXY. The poster for Frascati, which gave you the first - and certainly not last - place on the podium at the D&AD.

What followed were exciting trips and ditto turns.

Smoothly you switched from package design for the HEMA to complete house styles for ministries and corporates. And just as easily you turned in the direction of motion design to eventually get back together with the recent identity for ADCN.

And on the way, you never came to a halt.

At most for a stopover in London, New York, Germany or France to receive an award. By the way, I wonder if you've been to the MOMA at the time, when your poster for Theatre of the East hung there in an exhibition.

What a story is that.

Unbelievable.

Anyway, I should stop because before you know it, it'll be another himmelhochjauchzend piece with a high "Well-look-at-me' content.

These are already written enough about you.

Indeed, there is an entire book written about you!

And in that book everything has been said. The bravoure, fun, desire for renewal, passion, drive to work, playfulness, the eternal curiosity, anarchy, beauty, brutality, everything that describes you passed.

Really, everything.

Hard to imagine that two kindred spirits knew how to manifest themselves in so many different ways. That's where in my beliefs your fun was.

That over and over again you knew how to put everyone on the wrong track.

That's probably why David Bowie was your childhood idol, Paul.

That man also showed a different face every time.

Just as you do in your work.

To me, that work is like a mirror.

Be yourself, but never be the same.

If you should be defined, then hell but in that way.

You are the guardian of the expressive, whimsical, many-headed artistry.

Or two headed artistry, even better.

Embedded in a unique collaboration.

You yourself had a beautiful one-liner for it:

You are never pulling both sides of the rope.

You did not gain an unfair advantage over one another.

You have reached the best in each other.

That personal factor of such a cooperation made me decide to write you this letter and send it to vou.

Think of it as the ultimate tribute.

I want to express how admirable I think it is that even after 30 years you still manage to struck one another.

Finding each other to finally find that one, true solution.

I sincerely love you, that what you make and the way you work together and with others.

I would say: print this letter as a preface for your piece.

That has in any case in the history of the hall of fame never happened.

In that sense, it reflects your belief's that you should always do something that has not been done before.

Great greeting and hug,