Getting “Round To It! … Part 2 (Netherlands)

As I noted in my September 17, 2024 post (Getting “Round To It”) posting regularly on this website is a challenge. In fact, getting around to it in general is an ongoing hurdle.

So what’s the problem, and at 77 will I be able to modify my modus operandi? I’d say the odds are against me. Those engrained habits of scattering my attention in so many directions as well as difficulty prioritizing activities day-to-day seem to be who I am. A good indicator of my approach to daily life might be a look at my desktop and “digital desktop” (below, left). However, I have managed a desktop declutter (below, right) and hopefully can cleanup my digital desktop in the future, but that’s a bigger challenge.

In the meantime I ease inner turmoil by delighting in stamps as I did on September 17 past. Here are two miniature sheets of stamps issued by the Netherlands this year and last that seem to be visual metaphors for a decluttered desk and mind.

The first sheet (below) was issued by the Netherlands on February 17, 2025. It presents a collection of five historical trams and delights me: orderliness presented in such a beautiful way. It’s a visual metaphor for what I’d like my desktops (and mind) to be: clearly organized information and calming shades of gray with dull orange, blue gray and black accents.

The stamps show two photos each of five historic trams. The color photo is a current image of the tram, and the black and white photo is from the time the tram was in active use. The photos are connected by a black and white tram track that runs from top to bottom and from left to right as a route through the entire stamp sheet. One unique design element at the sheet’s corners and in the title is the three links. This design device is the work of architect Hein Berlage (1856-1934), who designed it for a transport poster from 1893 for the Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij, the first railway in the Netherlands which began operation in 1839.

The sheet was designed by Anne Schaufeli and Huub de Lang of studio026 in Velp. Schaufeli says of the design process, “First we went looking for images. In the Netherlands, all kinds of organizations and museums are involved with trams, but that is often limited to a specific city. In the Dutch Open Air Museum, which represents the entire country, there are…old trams driving around… [The museum has a] nostalgic feeling that the design of the past evokes: the historic trams, the old letters, the signs, the tram tickets, the colors and the typography.”

The second sheet of 10 stamps (below) features “The Flora of Bonaire” and was issued on August 12, 2024. The sheet is part of the multi-year “Experience Nature” series (2024-2026) focused on the Caribbean Netherlands ( Bonaire, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten). The plan is to issue four sheets each year that depict plants and animals in this part of the Netherlands. With thousands of plant and animal species, the islands in this area have a level of diversity unknown in the Netherlands.

This sheet, designed by Frank Janse of Gouda and printed by Royal Joh. Enschedé  B.V., Haarlem, is also a visual metaphor for personal qualities I’d like to achieve. While not rigidly structured like the Historic Tram sheet, a diverse array of goat’s foot (left, top),  dividivi tree (right, top), melon cactus( left, second down), holywood (right, second down), red mangrove (left, third down), lady of the night (right, third down), dagger cactus (left, fourth down), sea purslane (right, fourth down), Dutch casha  (left, bottom), and prosopis juliflora (right, bottom) and their colors are artfully blended into each other to create graphic unity.

Janse notes that “I could have solved [the design assignment] by only depicting flowers, but then you don’t do justice to the diversity of the flora on the island. DIN 2014 was chosen as the…font to put even more emphasis on the colors. This creates a nice contrast between the colors of the plants and flowers on the one hand and the sober and sleek typography on the other.”

My metaphoric take away from this stamp sheet is the balancing of all of life’s many elements into a manageable, and hopefully beautiful, whole.

(Postscript: These two sheets have a serendipitous rail connection. The DIN 2014 font used for “The Flora of Bonaire” sheet is an adaptation of the original DIN typeface whose origin can be traced to 1905 when the Royal Prussian Railway Administration (Königlich Preußische Eisenbahn-Verwaltung) or KPEV, standardized the lettering used on the railway’s rolling stock for easier identification.)