The project ‘Character Type’ was an intervention in the city of Rotterdam in september 2018 and bridged the gap between public art and skateboarding. The words are a hommage to a skate state of mind. 

Therefore the letters were build and designed to be skatable sculptures and placed in the city to create new skatespots and transform unused space into a temporary lively area for three days.

The design comes from a series of typographical installations done by Opperclaes for the last 4 years. By using typography in public space they created an endless area for graphic design, with no boundaries in scale and size. Character Type is the first three dimensional intervention which was build with furniture designer and skateboarder Jeroen van Sluis.

The film is made by Sami El Hassani, a Rotterdam filmmaker. El Hassani gathered a group of the most creative skateboarders from the Netherlands and planned the trip through the city during the weekend. The words and letters were skated in ways that they were intended to skate, but most of the times the skaters would see or find ways to use them in different ways than expected. Resulting in an edit full of great skating with loads of creativity.

Riders in order of appearance: Reyndert Guiljam, Rob Maatman, Robin Pedro, Martijn Guiljam, Rachid Addou, Joey Verberkt, Jeremy van der Eijk, Remco Stolze, Marc Francis, Wouter Molenaar, Jeff Smit, Tim Zom, Jannes van der Baar, Dennie Wagner, Jan Maarten Sneep, Marcel Beemster, Robbin de Wit, Sebastiaan Vijverberg, Wouter de Jong

Film and edit by Sami El Hassani

Additional filming by Wouter Molenaar, Sven Bezem, Rachid Addou