Vechtstreek is a ttribute to typeface Chicago by Susan Kare, an American artist and graphic designer who contributed interface elements and typefaces for the first Apple Macintosh personal computer (1983).

Vechtstreek is a true vector-based font with more than 180 glyphs* pure nostalgia! Use it in your every-day-apps like TextEditor, Notes and Mail or make a pixelated impression with Adobe’s Creative Suite.

An early version of Vechtstreek goes back to 2018 when Walt Disney’s movie »Ralph Breaks the Internet« displayed a Chicago spin-off in various scenes and made me wonder »Can I do that?!«

If your project requires that retro bitmap look-and-feel Vechtstreek is gonna wreck it! Or in typical Dutch: Vechtstreek gaat het rammen!

* Uppercase, lowercase, standard punctuation, accented uppercase, accented lowercase, arrows, &cetera.

Download a type specimen in PDF format.

In 1984 Susan Kare worked on the first version of Apple’s revolutionary graphical user interface. She began by sketching arrows, buttons, pointing hands, and other visual elements in a notebook. These casual prototypes of the new, user-friendly face of computing were initially drawn with a pen on graph paper, each square representing a pixel.

For long I am fascinated by internet slang and ASCII emoji which unstoppably infiltrated our digital communication. These sequences worked as a short code in several forums and chatrooms. RTFM (yes, Read The Fucking Manual) combines both worlds. Use it to quickly generate custom UI buttons. Instant fun for T-shirts or social media stickers! (Try Sticker Maker.app, it’s free)

RTFM works on macOS plus Windows computers and with a few extra steps (try iFont.app, not free) on your Apple mobile devices as well.

Is RTFM free? Nope. But for just 10 EUR you can add RTFM (+ bonus font RTFM Sticker and an Adobe Illustrator template to generate your first buttons / stickers) to your font collection. Just send an email to: designisfijn@icloud.com.

RTFM will be updated regularly with more iconic, pixelated design elements from the previous century. Stay tuned in and follow me on Insta!

Download a type specimen in PDF format.

Popular Tags: Font / Typography

SpongeBob SquarePants pal: Patrick Star—a dimwitted yet friendly pink starfish who resides under a rock. Patrick considers himself to be intelligent, with his ignorance of his stupidity being a key trait of his. By chance I came across this muscular starfish during X-mas shopping this year.

Popular Tags: Branding / Comic / Identity / Portrait

SpongeBob SquarePants pal: Sandy Cheeks—a thrill-seeking and athletic squirrel from Texas who wears an air-filled diving suit to breathe underwater. She lives in a tree enclosed in a clear glass dome locked by an airtight, hand-turned seal and is an expert in karate.

Popular Tags: Branding / Comic / Identity / Portrait

The lion-dragon Barong is the king of the spirits and leader of good forces in Indonesian mythology. Very cool—and rare!—T-shirt for my son Niels (a.k.a. ‘Buffeltje’).

Popular Tags: Branding / Identity / Logo / Portrait

Design is an iterative process: explore, try, share, test, reject … and start over again. This cycle approach stimulates progressive insight.

The concept ‘design = fijn’ [Dutch for ‘fine’] has become an integral part of the philosophy underlying all my work: for people who appreciate fine design. My fascination for mechanical typewriters, monospaced fonts, ASCII art and emoji, led to the logo design.



An early version from 2015 to 2018 and now (early) in 2024.

Popular Tags: Branding / Identity / Logo / Poster / Typography

‘EGO’ is the Latin word for ‘Me, Myself and I’, a song by American hip hop trio De La Soul, released in 1989.

Popular Tags: Branding / Identity / Logo