On 24 June 2024, PostNL will release the stamp sheet André van Duin — 60 Years of Great Entertainment. It will be exactly 60 years since he made his breakthrough by winning the talent show Nieuwe Oogst. The stamp sheet includes snapshots of André’s career which he is proud of. The stamp sheet was designed by Sandra Smulders from Vormgoed in Gouda.
André van Duin was born in Rotterdam on 20 February 1947 as Adrie (Adrianus Marinus) Kyvon. On 24 June 1964, his breakthrough came when he won the talent show Nieuwe Oogst under the stage name André van Duin — his first appearance on television at the age of just 17. He was an overnight success. That same year, he and his parody band performed on Willy and Willeke Alberti’s popular TV show and supported the Rolling Stones at the Kurhaus in Scheveningen. In 1968, André joined the Snip en Snap Revue and in 1969 he got his own big show, Lach In De Ruimte, with the entertainer Frans van Dusschoten as co-host. In the years that followed, Van Duin grew into one of the greatest entertainers the Netherlands has ever known, as an impressionist, comedian, movie star, singer, writer, producer and presenter. He has received many awards, including the Johan Kaartprijs (1985), the Gouden Driehoek (1992), the Beeld & Geluid Oeuvre Award (2010), the Edison Oeuvreprijs voor Kleinkunst en Comedy (2012) and an Honorary Zilveren Nipkowschijf (2018). In 2021, he received the Televizier-Ster for Best Presenter (2021) and was also named Broadcaster of the Year. Since 2016, he has presented the TV show Heel Holland Bakt (“Dutch Bake Off”). Together with Janny van der Heijden, André van Duin presented the programmes Denkend aan Holland (“Thinking of Holland”) and Denkend aan Zwitserland (“Thinking of Switzerland”).
In the format of André van Duin — 60 Years of Great Entertainment, the left and right halves are rotated 180 degrees relative to each other. The same applies to the images on the 3 stamps at the bottom left and the 3 stamps at the top right. Of the 6 photos on the stamps, 3 are in colour and 3 in black and white. The top left of the sheet features a colour portrait photo of André van Duin at the beginning of his career and there is a recent portrait photo in black and white on the bottom right of the sheet. These 2 photos are also rotated 180 degrees relative to each other.
Each stamp features a photo that reflects a special aspect of André van Duin’s career: the talent show Nieuwe Oogst in 1964, the TV show Animal Crackers (from 1988) symbolised by the photo of André and the baby orangutan Sabientje, the radio and TV show Dik Voormekaar Show (from 1973), the televised baking show Heel Holland Bakt (from 2016), his speech on National Remembrance Day at the Royal Palace of Amsterdam in 2021 and André in his home studio. A graphic diamond shape is overlaid across the stamp sheet as a reference to André van Duin’s diamond anniversary.
The typography on the sheet uses the Mixta Didone, a 2020 font designed by Rodrigo Fuenzalida from Latinotype in Santiago, Chile.
The stamp sheet was designed by the graphic designer Sandra Smulders from Vormgoed in Gouda. Her design focuses on prominent aspects of André van Duin’s anniversary as an artist. Smulders: “The first thing I thought when I got the assignment was: I’m not going to portray any characters. That has been done so many times in the visual language around André, there is so much more to say about him but I’m not the designer for that. Luckily, I was on the same page as André’s management. They also wanted to honour his entire work. In the design, I mainly wanted to highlight André as a person: a calm, friendly, caring and sweet man, just as we got to know him as the presenter of the baking show Heel Holland Bakt.”
Proud
In conversation with André’s management, Smulders asked what André himself is most proud of when he looks back on the last 60 years. “The answer was clear. His proudest moments are Animal Crackers, the Dik Voormekaar Show and his speech at the Royal Palace of Amsterdam on National Remembrance Day on 4 May 2021. These topics definitely had to go on the stamps. I also wanted to show images of the very beginning, his breakthrough on the talent show Nieuwe Oogst. And images from today, as presenter of the TV show Heel Holland Bakt. The moment he took over from Martine Bijl on this programme in 2016 was a turning point in his career. From then on, André’s more serious side became visible. The final image on the stamps shows André at home, in his studio. That’s where he feels most comfortable when he’s busy editing images and sound. Just dabbling, as he describes it. The 6 photos are spread over the stamp sheet in such a way that the left features images of the past and the right shows images from recent years.”
180 degrees
The 6 stamps in this release — a logical number given that it is celebrating 6 decades of van Duin’s career — are positioned at a 180-degree angle from each other on the sheet, 3 at the bottom left and 3 at the top right. “From the start, I had this idea of honouring André with 2 large portraits,” says Smulders. “One showing him as a young artist, the other as he is now. With a normal layout on the stamp sheet, the space on the edge would be far too limited. That’s why I found this solution where the portraits are rotated 180 degrees relative to each other. This required a new pattern for distributing the stamps across the sheet, with the added advantage that the portrait photos could run down to the tabs. In both large photos, André looks into the camera with a calm and serious expression. This immediately makes the contrast between past and present visible. I reinforced this by depicting the oldest portrait from 1964 in colour and the most recent one in black and white.”
Image selection
As a public figure, André van Duin naturally features in a great many photographs and film and TV footage. Smulders: “His managers gave me all kinds of books and documentation to choose from. It wasn’t always easy, though. Not all photo material had a high enough resolution to be printed. I also couldn’t choose photos that could only be used editorially. Portrait rights were not an issue because the protagonist, of course, was cooperating with me. But I didn’t want other people in the photos because it’s about André — with the exception of the baby orangutan Sabientje as a reference to Animal Crackers, and Uncle Joop because he is inextricably linked to the Dik Voormekaar Show.”
Diamond layers
Is part of her design concept, Smulders added an extra layer to connect all the images. “This approach made complete sense,” says Smulders. “Sixty years is a diamond anniversary. The diamond layers with white lines run diagonally across the sheet and over the stamps. Each stamp is therefore divided into 3 or 4 areas, which brings more tension to the image. Out of the many colours a diamond can have, I chose to add a grey-blue sheen to the layers. It adds a colour gradient to the stamps with colour photos. And you can see a similar effect with black and white photo where it adds a dash of grey-blue colour. The same shades recur on the bottom left and top right of the tabs and the sheet edge. The typography runs along the white lines created by the layers on the stamps. It pretty much fell into place naturally, the logical consequence of a concept that works. Apart from the title, no further text has been placed on the stamp sheet. The photos are so clear — and André is so familiar — that they need no explanation.”
Super excited
Smulders wanted to create a modern, classic and stylish design that does justice to who André van Duin is as a person. “He is a humble, loyal and, above all, kind man. That’s why I selected these photos. I wanted to create style through the use of colour, the peacefulness in the images and the composition. That included using a serif font. I don’t usually jump to use one, but it fit very naturally into the design. Waiting for approval was nerve-wracking. Would PostNL agree with the different layout of the stamp sheet? Would André be happy with it? Fortunately, everyone was super excited.”
About the designer
Sandra Smulders (The Hague, 1974) studied advertising and presentation design at Nimeto Utrecht from 1991 to 1995, specialising in graphic design. After graduating, she worked as a graphic designer and art director at the B2B agency Admix, the communications agency FPW, Manten Grafisch Ontwerpbureau and VDM Reklame, all based in Rotterdam. In 2007, she founded the Vormgoed agency in Gouda as a graphic designer and art director. Smulders specialises in designing logos and corporate identities and further developing the associated communication tools. She mainly works for the business community. Her recent clients include the engineering firm ABT, the travel company All for Nature, Groundwater Technology, Overeijnder Van den Dool communications and DAVO Publishers. For PostNL, Smulders previously designed the stamp sheet The Visual Language of Nature (2024), the NL Crypto Stamp Gold Edition, the NL Crypto Stamp 2 – Lion and its Luxembourg and Austrian variants (2023), the stamps for World Animal Day (2022) and for Stamp Day (2020-2023), the stamp series Back to the 20th Century and Trains & Tracks(2019), the Children’s Stamps 2018, the stamp series celebrating 50 years of Fabeltjeskrant (2018) and the 25 Years of Fokke & Sukke (2018) stamp series.
