The new The Hague City Logo: One day before take off

Since The Hague took over an Alderman from Amsterdam who introduced the successful slogan/city logo:

I Amsterdam
I Amsterdam

which slogan/city logo made The Hague envious, it is not so strange that The Hague gave the same Alderman a free hand in launching a new logo for the city The Hague – also known as “‘s-Gravenhage” or “Den Haag” or “Hofstad” (i.e. Royal Residential City) in the Dutch language.

The launch is anticipated tomorrow, 1 November 2006.

The logo has been designed by Anton Corbijn, the more famous of two famous Dutch Corbijn photographers, his brother being Maarten Corbijn, also known as Corbino. Anton became famous as photographer of pop stars like David Bowie, Miles Davis and many others, as a designer of many album covers and also for his close relation with U2 as Bono’s favorite photographer, which culminated in his recent book U2 & I (good site to listen Electric Storm of U2).

So, of course the launch promises to be a spectacle. A lot of noise was made already in a Dutch press and in the municipal board where Mayor and Aldermen had to defend their selves politically for the huge cost of the launching party, a mere Euro 192,000 for a two hour happening, or as the paper says Euro 52,77 per second. In addition there will be a wester storm to blow the 1000 invited people from the scaffold that has been erected for the occasion.

Another storm is that the logo has been leaked (or a dummy, you never know):

Leaked logo

and is already appearing on T shirts:

Leaked Logo The Hague

(Thanks AD)

This caused the local paper and a local TV station to organize a logo contest which attracted 50 entries and resulted in this winning logo:

Winning Logo The Hague

(Again thanks »AD)

But my favorite remains be this:

Old Logo of The Hague

This is a photo (by GJE himself) of a very old logo once (in 1901) belonging to the “Hofstad Fanfare” of The Hague which doesn’t exist anymore.

A fanfare is a typical Dutch and Belgian orchestra, with trumpets, trombones, flugelhorns, French horns/saxhorns, tubas, saxophones and percussion. Fanfares are usually orchestras that play walking. They walk and enhance celebrations and ceremonies usually in the open Air.

This logo shows an important element of the logo (or cote of arms) of The Hague, the stork.

Many people are fearing the stork will disappear from the logo. We will see tomorrow. The launch will be happening around the corner from where I live, so I have to have make time to have a look and let you know.

Hotel Blogs: Thanks Guillaume

Guillaume

Guillaume Thevenot, a 31 yr French male and former Parisian living in London for about 5 years and working in the online hospitality industry, writes the interesting Blog Hotel Blogs and noted my post on Herbert Ypma’s site Hip Hotels.

Update: Unfortunately his blog has ceased to exist. I believe he started to abandon it when he started to work for Tripadvisor….

Last edited by gje on december 17, 2016

Travel Rants Blog: Thanks, Darren

Travelrants

Darren Cronian, a 33 yr old male of Leeds, UK, devoted a very kind post (unfortunately the blog has discontinued since) to Happy Hotelier, trying to induce me to write more posts….I answered I didn’t need more incentives, but simply more time….Thank you for this referral, Darren!

Darren answered he works full time for a large organization, runs a travel accommodation business, and writes daily on Travel Rants.

Uhm, probably I need to re study my time management literature.

Travel Rants offers many interesting posts and subjects and an accompanying place on Flickr.

In any case this post learns me how wide a full width picture has to be (maximally 540 pix) on this blog. I still have to consider how many pix a half width picture has to be, because the 200 pix width that Darren uses, is a bit small for me. I like photos too much. Well, Blogging is all about trial and error.

Also through Darren I learn there existed already a Happy Traveller blog already quite some time before I started Happy Hotelier. I simply didn’t know.

Further digging on his site made me find another blog of Darren Blogged Out. Alas also discontinued.
Update 1 November 2006:
Oops, the width should be 520 pix, as otherwise there is a conflict with the sidebar in IE which then loads under rather than next to the text…..

Maximilian in Prague

Maxiilian

Recently Hotel Maximilian opened after a renovation led by Eva Jiricna Architects who is based in London.

Its building goes back to the roaring twenties and was redone in the early days after the transition from communism and now again in 2006 to make it more of a design hotel.

70 standard / superior rooms, 1 suite equipped with a glasspartition- bathroom with a Philippe Starck-bathtub and shower. All rooms are with 15 cm diameter rainfall showerheads, ……and so on… to be concluded with: The rooms are sound proofed and mostly situated facing the courtyard.

I wonder how soundproof if necessary to mention this on the website?

Last edited by GJE on December 3, 2011 at 11:32 pm

The Cool Hunter into Hotel Books

Usually a glossy starts a blog or weblog. Now The Cool Hunter has a few exciting projects in the works, which will be announced in the next few weeks.
One upcoming project is the release of a series of Cool Hunter branded lifestyle books, together with Harper Collins Publishing, with content from the pages;of The Cool hunter.

One of the first releases will be “Sleeping Beauties-The World’s Coolest Hotel Rooms”. The Book will feature the finest and coolest hotel rooms the world has to offer.