Frank E. Blokland
Frank E. Blokland (Leiden, 1959) studied Graphic and Typographic design at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague from 1978 to 1982. As a student, in 1980 he founded the successful working group Letters from which many well known Dutch type designers have come.
In 1985 Blokland won Chartpak's type design contest with his typeface Bernadette which was then published as a dry transfer font. A year later he designed the Bulthuismonument (Bergum, Friesland) and its lettering for the Royal Dutch Mail. More lettering assignments followed, like the Homomonument near the Westerkerk in Amsterdam, the plaque at the Jewish Orphanage in Leiden, and the Franciscanessen-monument in Oegstgeest.
In 1990 Blokland wrote a bestseller with his course book for Teleac's television course Kalligraferen, de kunst van het schoonschrijven (Calligraphy, the art of hand writing) of which 16.000 copies were sold. In the same year Blokland founded the Dutch Type Library. Since the 1980s he has published over 150 articles in professional journals like Compres, Page, PrintBuyer, and the Hamburger Satzspiegel.
When Gerrit Noordzij retired in 1987 from the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, Blokland was the first of the younger generation to succeed him. Blokland now lectures in letter drawing and type design/production to first- and post-graduate courses at this institute. In 1995 he was asked to become a lecturer at the Plantin Society in Antwerp. A few years later he initiated and supervised the development of DTL FontMaster, a set of utilities for professional font production. Frank E. Blokland designed amongst others the typefaces DTL Documenta and DTL Haarlemmer.
[Frank E. Blokland, December 2003]
Fonts designed by Frank E. Blokland
