Frits Philips 100 years
The iconic Philips CEO Frits Philips turned 100 years on April 16 in the year 2005. To celebrate this unique man with great contribution to the city of Eindhoven a huge project was started together with all municipal stakeholders. To stream all activities and events on his 100th birthday I came up with the concept to rename all event locations and the name of the city itself to the name of Frits Philips. The idea was to emphasize the importance Frits Philips, son of the founder of Philips Electronics, had to the city of Eindhoven. So the central station was named Frits Philips Station, and likewise the Frits Philips University and of course the Frits Philips Stadion for his beloved football club PSV. And the city name was for a single day Frits Philips City.
Design of the central theme and logo: Frits Philips City by Maarten Schutjes, Dinodesign.
To illustrate the change process, this was the first slide presented to the mayor of Eindhoven, Mr Sakkers...
...and this was the second Powerpoint slide with the different name for the city of Eindhoven: Frits Philips Stad.
All the stakeholders in town changed their name for 1 day including the local media. Thereyby connecting all activities and events on the day into a central theme.
For his favorite football club a unique jersey was created with his name instead of his surname on the shirt.
The design of a unique postal card by Maarten Schutjes, "Greetings from Frits Philips City".
The Frits Philips Stadion, normally known as Philips Stadion.
The Station Frits Philips, normally known as NS station Eindhoven.
All the signs marking the entrance to Eindhoven city were changed to Frits Philips City.
In the night before the festivities someone removed some of the Frits Philips signs, so they had to be redone.
A sticker was used to temporarily mark the new name of the city of Eindhoven after the theft of the originals.
The new name was household on the birthday and made it into the news programs in The Netherlands.
The weekly newspaper Groot Eindhoven changed its name to Frits Philips Koerier (courier) and made a splash with a big headline and photo of the birthday boy in a special edition.
Even unofficial participants liked the idea and changed their name temporarily.
A special edition of the shirt was handed to Frits on his birthday. Sadly PSV didn't play in the shirt due to internal opposition.
On the fritsphilips 100 website the people of EIndhoven could send in their video messages to Frits.
Big banners with the campaign logo using the image of a light bulb as a symbol for Philips, Frits and
the City of EIndhoven.
the City of EIndhoven.
On december 6 2005 Frits Philips died, on the day his beloved PSV played a Champions League match against Fenerbahce. PSV won 2 - 0. But lost it's greatest supporter.