Soda Palm Suite, Lotte Geeven Lotte Geeven is a contemporary artist and works a lot with Day-Glo colors in her art. This aspect we translated into the printing process, when we replaced Magenta and Yellow with Day-Glo PMS colors. A German flower-book was of a big inspiration for her small projects made in Indonesia, so we decided to make a third flower-book of exactly the same size.
The editorial part of placing the groups of images was the main part of the design, we came up with associations within color, content and form to create the order, so it was more about our intuition during the design of the content. To mix these groups again we chose 4 different types of paper to print on. Which image was printed on what kind of paper was carefully discussed. All these design decisions together ended up in the definite order of the book. All divided groups of art, collected and made by Lotte, are then placed again in an index in the end of the book. The cover of the publication shows also the intuition compared with the structure of nature. Abstract leaves placed in a fixed grid combined with the letters that form the title, look placed in a grid, but is placed just out of this grid.
Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst 2011
The Royal Awards for Painting is organized by the Dutch Queen every year for 140 years now. For this award I was asked to design a poster and a catalogue. During the first talks I got inspired by the idea that such a traditional prize supports modern young artists. This contradiction I wanted to use in the design, but I needed a form for it. The frame of a painting is the main structure in the booklet that divides titles and content and is the base of the lay-out. Every page is a part of this frame. The cover is laminated with a canvas reliëf, so from the cover to the center of the booklet its going from empty/rough to painted/glossy. The fonts Nobel and VanDenKeere are picked because they were both originally made in the 17th Century. These fonts visually represent the mix of the contemporary and the traditional. The centerfold shows the whole frame with all the winners artwork in it.
Marseilles-Provence, European Capital of Culture in 2013, proposal
Marseilles is a city with a lot of different cultures and the Mediterranean sea plays an important role in the daily life of the inhabitants. These two aspects we used to design the color scheme. The logo is based on the idea of a centre (the centre of culture), which can grow bigger, or stay small and focused, and it can also be related to a steering wheel of a ship or a compass. The abstract flag-forms that are part of the identity are inspired by Maritime flags, that are used to communicate at sea. All ingredients of the designed system can be applied in different kind of combinations, depending on the function of the object. They can be compiled in a lot of layers, but can also stay empty and clean.
Mondriaan Foundation, Annual Report & Poster
Every year the Mondriaan Foundation asks a young designer to design their annual report. In 2010 I was honored to design it. I got inspired by the concept of the Yellow Pages where indexing plays an important role. The metallic gold ink, the thin yellow paper and the tabs are a link to that as well. By using a tab for every chapter, it has consequences for the the lay-out, it starts very narrow and becomes wider while going further through the report. To emphasize on the shadows that are created by having the tabs, I even printed and extra shadow part on the first page of every chapter. The idea of the shadow is then also used in the choice of the typeface and the tabbing of the folded poster and the English version of the report.
Wiel Arets, STILLS, A timeline of ideas, articles and interviews 1982-2010
The monograph STILLS for the Dutch architect Wiel Arets is based on his career as an architect. STILLS shows the development of the oeuvre, shows the projects, expands upon the theoretical background and offers insight into the sources of inspiration and fascination of Wiel Arets himself. From his very early beginnings to his striking and unique personal vision on the future of urban development. We placed all the content – images and text – on a timeline, and because of that, the rhythm of text and images is continuous changing and never the same, because some years have more images or text than others. Wiel uses a lot of glass and concrete in his buildings and therefor we used silver, white and black throughout the whole book. The images are in a very special way lithographed and look as if the black part is printed on a silver background. The typographical form of the titles, made out of fragments of the Aperçu, is made to emphasize that the book is a compilation of fragments of his ongoing career.
i.c.w. Edwin van Gelder (Mainstudio)
printed by robstolk
Awarded as a Best Verzorgd Boek 2011
Hunch, magazine about architecture
Hunch is a magazine about architecture and critically examines worldwide issues and ideas that shape the built environment and the international architecture discourse from a Dutch perspective. It is published twice a year by the Berlage Institute in collaboration with NAi publishers in Rotterdam. The theme of Hunch 14 was 'Publicity'. We were inspired by the neon 'open' signs that hang in shopping windows and we used this in a literally way by photographing this object from the back as if you are the person that is in the shop and looks outside. The glow of this sign, especially in the dark, is used as the extra layer in the interior of the magazine. It begins small and gets bigger to the middle and ends small again. It is a metaphor for opening and closing a door. The colors are printed in PMS day-glo colors, to get the realistic effect of neon glow. Every 16 pages the color gets lighter, so the text stays readable on the parts where the gradient gets wider and darker.
d'RAW catalogue & exhibition design
The empty sheet of paper in front of an artist, waiting to be sketched on was the starting point for the concept for the catalogue and design of the exhibition d’RAW at SCHUNCK* in Heerlen. The event showed sketches, drawings and artwork made by street-artists from all over the world. The silver color of graphite is used for the typography and background shadows of the artwork. The flat images get lifted out of the book, to focus more on the idea of paper on paper. All the titles are drawn by hand to give it the sketch-feel. During the opening I did a LIVE performance to finish the second layer of the design for the cover, by spray-painting one big black line over all the books. This underscores the handwork that is the main theme of the show; it also makes every cover unique.
SHAPE magazine, Arnhem Mode Biennale 2009
The theme of the Fashion Biennale Arnhem 2009 was ‘Shape’. We used geometrical forms for the magazine to go to the base of graphic shapes. The circle, square and triangle represent a chapter each and are used in details, forms of images and lay-out. With these 3 different embossed shapes we decided to make 3 covers. The colors were part of the campaign that was designed by Aagje Martens and Jaap Kroneman and the typeface ‘History’ by Peter Bilak is chosen to express the ‘shape’ in the typography, and is mainly used in titles. The cover was decomposed for the installation in the window of famous bookstore Atheneum in Amsterdam. The type is glued on the window itself, the geometrical shapes are hung in the open space, and the photograph is put on the wall behind.
ZOO 2010 agenda
Every year since 1984 a designer is asked to design the calendar for ZOO productions with the theme of ‘time’. Sunrise and sunset are shown in a literally way in the images, but are treated with pixelated noise that starts big and ends small. This is connected to the scientific explanation of the colors you see during sunrise and sunset. During sunset there are more dust particles in the air, which makes the colors brighter then during sunrise.
The images used are collected from friends and family and show sunrises and sunsets from all over the world. I took the vertical side of the booklet and used it as a 24 hour timeline, it shows the hours from dusk till dawn in a yellow gradient, that becomes stronger during summer, and lighter during the winter time. The type from January till December also becomes thicker in the summer, the sun is stronger then and gives sharper shadows and for this the whole spectrum of the Helvetica family is used.
restyle Glamcult, independent fashion newspaper
The Dutch fashion newspaper Glamcult comes out every month. The design should therefor be functional, readable and easy to make at the same time. for the restyle, I played with the idea of the fight between images and text. One condition was that imagery should be used as big as possible, so that was my starting point for the lay-out; the images push the text away. Because of this simple but complex looking idea and way of constructing the lay-out it gives it a various outcome every time, and there is much freedom designing the magazine.
