Designblog

‘Also sprach Zarathustra’

The book I chose to write about is F. Nietzsche [x] ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’ designed of Belgian Flemish painter and architect Henry van de Velde in 1908. The design of this book immediately captured my attention, but when I saw the title I was involved even more because I also have an e-book version of ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’ so it was very intriguing to see this book in real.

In this page layout we see a symmetrical duplicate composition which makes the whole design stronger and more impressive. The deep reddish – purple and gold colours palette gives it a very dramatic effect. The form of the image is massive and monumental and also flat but still decorative. The content of the illustration is quite abstract. H. van de Velde used organic motives which are creating a very dynamic atmosphere even if the framework has a very strict geometrical form though these two different patterns come together very well. Van de Velde leaves some ‘calm’ place for the text. The font of the title is solid and works with framework. The balance Henry van de Velde creates in his design is sophisticated. In conclusion it creates the feeling that there is just a thin line between simplicity and complexity.

This image I chose to support this text is a cover which I designed myself for the book ‘Grimm’s Tales’ a year ago. It is influenced by 19- 20^th century typography. Between both images you can see some similar characteristics which are typical for that period.

post by Egle Petraskaite

the edition Suhrkamp designed by Willy Fleckhaus, 1963

The book I want to write about was actually a series – the edition suhrkamp from Suhrkamp Verlag. Willy Fleckhaus designed it in 1963 and it remained unchanged till 2004. He managed to create a very basic visual identity which consists only of colour and typography.
The covers of the 48 books which are published every year are held each in a different colour of the visual spectrum. No pictures can be found on the covers – in fact it is reduced to the name of author, title and publisher put into a grid of lines in the width of the cover page and at the bottom of it. The books are affordable and therefore popular in literature class in school. For a lot of pupils in Germany a certain title is very strongly connected to a certain colour.

Edition Suhrkamp books were a forum and inspiration for leftist-intellectual discussion in Germany for years, which came apparent as well in reviews written by its protagonists for the edition’s 40 year anniversary. It has published texts from Adorno, Brecht and Barthes. As well as the texts, the daring design stays in the minimalist style of the avant-garde. I see it as a metaphor for the development of the 68-generation that the complete collection can be bought inclusively made-to-fit, white design book shelf for the avant-garde living room. Ideals and individuality are important, but it comes with a surprisingly open attitude towards consumerism and must-haves.
From this text it may seem a rather impersonal approach to my choice of a book from “Printed Matter“, but I am mostly fascinated by the role of edition Suhrkamp as a publisher in society and as one of the most important forums for intellectual discussion in German. Adding to that I like timeless design which became fact here and it is as an example next to for example Otl Aicher‘s pictograms [x] for the 1972 Olympic games. At the same time, because of my impression that all books in “Printed Matter“ stood in a modernist interest of solid, timeless, well-designed books and me being familiar to that 60s rainbow colour design with typo, I chose Willy Fleckhaus‘ series also with a bit of irony.

post by Nicola Arthen

„Bifur: caractère de publicité” by A.M. Cassandre, Paris 1929

I found this book most interesting at the collection exibit I saw at the University of Amsterdam. A.M. Cassandre, whose real name was Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, was an Ukrainian- french graphic designer from the Interbellum period. He was designing posters and letter types.
Bifur was poduced by Deberny & Peignot from Cassandre’s designs. The book is a publication of this font released in 1929.

I chose this book cause i was impressed by a font itself and also the form of the book- how it was printed. I really like the simplicity and a specific character of it. The font was originally produced in 1- and 2-color versions. The one presented in the book is a 1-color version. I think visually it is very appealing and it was quite innovative for its time. The simplicity of the geometrical form, clarity of the message, funcionality create a beautifully balanced font. For me particularly attractive is the fact that some of the letters could be read as images and some of them as the letters with a small decorative element which anyway stays really simple. For example the lines in the letter „L” create the letter but in „M” they just create space around it. That makes me look at it, also the illustration in the book and not something that creates a readable image.
I also like the way how it is presented in the book. I think the combination of this elegant form of the font and the yellow colour create an absorbing, unique image.

Personally i also like the posters of A.M. Cassandre and i think the font in his works is very well combined with the images and shows how important this connection is.

post by Hania Sobolewska

‘Traité des fougères de l’Amérique’, Charles plumier (1705), Imprimerie Royale, Paris

This book is a collection of ferns found on the American continent. It was printed one year after the death of the author. Through the thin paper we see that every fern has it’s own leaf (Ironically). What I like about the book is that the Ferns seem to have adapted to the form of a book. They seem to have sprouted somewhere outside the confines, out of the eye and “grown” precisely inside the printing ratio and reached a perfect 1/?2 scaled size. I like how the fern leafs function as separate columns on the sheet. And the little leafs on it function as lines, and the dots on these leafs as unreadable letters.

Traité des fougères de l’Amérique is printed on lain paper, a paper that was very often used in the 19^th century. This paper has a watermark, thin lines of a thicker paper as nerves over the sheet. The lines are formed by a dandy roll. The lines on the paper suggest that the paper also has nerves, the same as the leaves lying on the paper. Next to that the book has a limp binding, animal skin that is prepared to print and write on functions as the cover of the book. Where the animal skin again has a pattern that can be seen as patterns of plants.

The arte povera artist Guiseppe Penone compared the skin, mostly very enlarged, to the bark of a tree, and his fingerprint to leafs. His drawings, partly printed as this book is, are the best example where all these aspects come together. The printed leaves with their, in Penone’s work, very outstanding nerves on a soft sheet of heavy paper and rough fibered paper. They are directly connected to the mouth as forming one plant.

In this book where leaves are growing in the books shape, but also the other way around the book, looking like a plant too, aspects are mixing up creating a bit of an unlikely but beautiful image.

post by Naomi van Dijck

The first time I saw his book was at a gallery, which let’s agree it’s not the most intriguing place for displaying books since we didn’t have the chance to go through the pages, but the positive side of it was that it made me even more curious about the content of the book and helped me to analyze my primary choice I had to choose among an array of books from different ages, designers, concepts and styles.
Why did I chose this one? Sagmeister’s book was one of few books lacking any text on the cover meaning that for it’s representation
it relies only on its visual qualities. But not only that, it lacks any hint of subject on it as well so it triggered me to step closer.
At first look I saw a book with a portrait of an animal referring to a wolf, but the closer I went to the image the more information started “appearing” on it by different layers.That combination of overlaying made me curious even more. When it is in it’s red plastic cover a perfect, friendly and appealing portrait of a German shepherd is displayed on the surface, but once you remove it, the mood of the dog changes by an added green layer and it doesn’t even look like dog anymore. It adopts a dualistic grotesque-creature shape which fascinated me instantly.
I found this interaction between all the elements very intriguing. Further in my investigation I figured out that it’s a book covering 20 years of graphic designs by Sagmeister, INCLUDING THE BAD ONES.

‘Made You Look’ by Sagmeister 2001

Cover and content, the duality of our showing on the surface what people want to see, but giving them the chance to look on the other side as well.

post by Jenela Kostova

The Nuremberg Chronicle 1493

Nurenberg Chronicle, from 1493 written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel and illustrated by Michael Wolgemut, is a biblical paraphrase (incunable), world known because of it’s impressive woodcut illustrations, and the impressive quantity of them, making it the most richly illustrated book of the incunable period.

I chose this book mainly because of the woodcuts, and their (religiøse fortællinger-ord?!) value. The illustrations were colored afterwards (mainly with watercolors and tints), by different artists, and I like the lightness of the colors, compared to the heaviness of the text-printing, which is dense and firmly detailed. The coloring makes the illustrations (subjects) more digestible and vivid. Still the illustrations are very strong and loaded with absurd, fairytale-like figures and settings.
The images work with the text in a very active way, and has almost more importance/prevalence then the text itself, that gives the book a more artistic and aesthetic value, than only the literary value. It reminded me of the fist comic books.[x]

The fact that the images are so strong and prominent made me think in the beginning, that the book in it’s time, the 15th century, was somehow not elitist, as was the case in general for books- if one couldn’t read, there was no access to the content. With so many images, the book invites the illiterate to understand the stories and messages. But on the other hand, the book must have been such a luxury, so only some certain groups of society had access to it. Though the Chronicle was also published shortly after the Latin version, in a German one, what might have spread the notion of it in the countries closer connected to the German language. I would have liked to have an impression of how approachable the text might have been, compared to the immediateness of the images.
So, I made my choice by instinctively being attracted to this (both imagery and textual) classical, mastodon piece of historic religious literature.

post by Francesca Burattelli

When it comes to the background of my choice, I pick something that is organized, especially when I pass the day which is quite unfocussed. What I mean ‘Organized’ in this context is, something simple, straight, and propagating a messages well whatever it is. On the way to the exhibition place, many different things on the street were distracting me a lot. Also the fact that i need to see many things at the place, made me think about only rest. Fortunately, a scale of the exhibition was not that large, besides the thing that i wanted to see was very clear. Although there were tons of texts that had enough power to give me a positive impression, I was looking for a book which had a story or visual language as simple as it can be.

In the last part of the exhibit place, I found the image that i was looking for.
It was a book with a simple Isotype image with few colors but very skilled way of drawing. The image was telling a story very well. The only pity was, that the full text was written in German, which I can not understand. However, the Isotype-styled image was intriguing enough for me to look at. Even though it was based on a spontaneous choice, I liked it quite a lot. Because of a connection between the motive of my choice and the memory from my childhood, imagining the time, I was drawing a number of sketches for my dream house and played a game about building a house and making a story out of people living in that house. I enjoyed telling a story with a basic image, which gives a hint to what kind of upcoming story will be expected. The memory of mine and the image from the book in front of me were connected very well. That is why I felt interested and considered this book to be my favorite among other books. Maybe the Isotype drawing was simply nice. It was a simple thing but made me feel happy on that occasion.
The book I found was:’Außen – Inne’ : was ist drinnen? ( what’s inside? ) by Marie Neurath Vienna 1956.

Marie Neurath (1898-1986 and husband Otto worked according the “Vienna Method”. which was later renamed Isotype: International System of typographic Picture Education.

post by Boyon Kang

the edition Suhrkamp designed by Willy Fleckhaus, 1963

In de collectie viel me op hoe vroeg sommige visuele elementen en experimenten al voorkwamen, hoe secuur en grafisch de encyclopedische tekeningen uit de periode voor het gebruik van fotografie waren, hoe imposant tastbaar en onhandelbaar de grote boeken met hun uitpuilende handgelegde papieren waren. Maar ik heb iets heel simpels gekozen om de overgebleven 300+ woorden aan op te maken:

Een serie boeken die bestaat uit uitgaven in verschillende kleuren waardoor de boeken samen een regenboog vormen. De boeken spraken me ook inhoudelijk aan, bij elkaar vormen ze een collectie waar je behoorlijk cultuur kritisch en radicaal dan wel wijs van zou worden (de collectie bevat een aantal niet canonische filosofen en figuren en leek me daarom des te interessanter). De serie is een selectie die door zijn vormgeving compleet probeert te zijn maar duidelijk niet conventioneel is. Voor mij is deze regenboogcollectie een simpele maar daarom niet minder mooie manier om te appelleren aan het verlangen om een serie boeken te hebben gelezen en ze herkenbaar en toch gedifferentieerd in de kast te hebben staan. Bovendien vormen ze een geheel, zijn ze bij elkaar een ‘compleetheid’, een overzicht. Ze lossen het epistemologische verlangen in van ieder die een boek koopt en daarmee hoopt alles of tenminste alles van iets te weten te zijn gekomen.

Los van elkaar zouden de kaften zomaar een kleur zijn, of zou het je juist op kunnen vallen dat de kleur bijzonder is, een tussenin-kleur, de ene kleur noch de andere. Ook zullen een aantal boeken uit de collectie steeds een ander kleurenpalet vormen. Dat palet ontstaat ondermeer door de voorkeur van iemand voor bepaalde boeken uit de serie. Het heeft ook iets kinderachtigs of oppervlakkigs om boeken op kleur in te delen, op ‘vorm’, niet op ‘inhoud’. Ik denk dat gezien de inhoudelijke zwaarte van de boeken juist de nuance van de verzameling als complete verzameling ?het hele scala wat je ermee te zien en te lezen krijgt? wordt benadrukt.

Wat de tentoonstelling me ondermeer duidelijk maakte is dat er bepaalde dingen bestaan die aantrekkelijk zijn en blijven, en dat het misschien die dingen zijn die grafisch kunnen worden genoemd als je er mee breekt of speelt. Sommige grafische clichés kregen in de tentoonstelling voor mij als het ware hun oprechte bron of context terug. De regenboogcollectie had een dergelijk cliché kunnen worden, maar misschien is het daar te aantrekkelijk en te uniek voor gebleven. Na wat onderzoek op internet kwam ik erachter dat op een paar andere regenboogboekuitgaven en een op kleur geordende boekenwinkel in New York na, vooral juist andere dingen op kleur gesorteerd worden. Vele collecties bestaan uit objecten uitgegeven in alle kleuren (vooral objecten waar je er meer van nodig hebt of kan hebben, zoals glazen, pennen, sokken, groente en fruit etc.) Rangschikking op kleur wordt veel gebruikt om wellicht functionele redenen. Maar ik vind het idee of vermoeden dat een regenboog collectie ook als een poging kan worden beschouwd om compleet te zijn interessanter. Dat idee laat zich ook illustreren door het werk Wonderkamer (2004) van Arnaud van den Heuvel. Vooral de ondertitel maakt de poging om een alomvattend overzicht te geven expliciet.

“An installation with all the images of the World in a room, sorted by color”.

concept
Visitors of the Wonderkamer (Miracle Room) enter an image-flow: a collection of thousands of images taken from their original context on the internet and arranged in a coloring scale from black to white.”

post by Victorine van Alphen

“Those lips, those eyes” by Edward Z. Epstein & Lou Valentino.

Designed by Paula Scher, New York, 1992

They say “never judge a book by its cover”, but I do.

I judge books by their cover all the time, but not only books, I judge everything buy its cover (at list at the first impression).

This book is full with beautiful black and white photographs of the stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, people who were screen legends who burned up the screen and captured the very embodiment of sensuality with a special emphasis on their eyes and lips. I’ve chosen this book because it is full with covers to judge, both literally and metaphorically.  Each photo to me looks like the cover of some book\magazine or like a poster\advertisement, and each iconic figure is also a “cover to judge”. That makes the book twice as interesting to me. I can look at each page or each photo and think about it, do I like the photo? Is it well made? What does it tell me? And so on. But I can also look at each character and have my thoughts about them, about their looks, do I recognize them? What do I know about them and what does the picture tell me about them? This book with it pictures still gives those feelings even after so many years, these photos are still so sensual and glamorous which makes them relevant even today.

Besides, when something is concerning the mysterious and tempting life of old Hollywood, that is reason enough for me to choose it.

post by Tamara Aharoni

The Complutensian Polyglot Bible, 1514

With my clothes still wet and after being forced to leave all my stuff in the lockers, I was finally ready to be impressed by one of the books in the vitrines. We were the only visitors at the whole “UvA Special Collections”, and after the difficult and rainy bicycle ride we were no more than 10, a small group from different nationalities which in a way resembled the layout of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible.

Printed in Alcalá de Henares, Spain in 1514, it was the first bible made in more than one language, Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Translation is always a problematic thing to do, specially in such as “precise” text as the Bible but not only in terms of meaning, using the same book for more than one text seems like a pretty risky design work. The first example of such a hard labour would probably  be the Rosseta stone [x], that became the most useful tool to understand the hieroglyphs from old Egypt. Made in 196 b.C and as well in three scrips, Egyptian, Demotic, and Ancient Greek, but with a pretty classical way of arranging the different languages, in three different paragraphs.

The main characteristic that makes the Polyglot Bible specially appealing is precisely the way that the text is arranged in the page, in parallel columns of different sizes that also combine different ways of reading (as it happens with the Hebrew and the other two languages). That idea seems really modern, and the look of the page looks quite similar to the once of a modern newspaper. If I think in contemporary polyglot texts the first examples that come to my mind are the magazines from the airplanes or the mails from the school, and in both cases one language follows the other, so the same meaning never shares the same space with all the troubles that come with that. After a small mental struggle trying to remember a similar graphic structure I realize that now we can find it in something that we all use, Google Translate.

post by Juan de Porras Isla

Maria Sybilla Merian

‘Over de voortteeling en wonderbaerlyke veranderingen der Surinaemsche insecten’

Alleen al vanwege de titel verdient dit boek het om goed te worden bekeken. Er gaat zoveel bewondering maar tegelijkertijd objectiviteit en bovenal precisie van uit, dat het direct mijn aandacht trekt. Evenals het formaat overigens, wat vrij groot is – daar houd ik van. Het maakt het lezen, het bekijken van de letters en de illustraties tot iets gewichtigs. Iets heel fysieks.

De titel en het formaat maken hun beloften waar. In ‘Over de voortteeling en wonderbaerlyke veranderingen der Surinaemsche insecten’ vertelt Merian in beeld en in taal op een degelijke maar heel betrokken wijze over het onderzoek dat zij deed naar insecten, tijdens haar verblijf in Suriname. Haar observaties beschrijven de werkelijkheid, maar vullen de werkelijkheid ook aan. Het is met name dat wat ik erg mooi vind aan dit boek.
Ook haar woordgebruik vind ik bijzonder. Dat gaat natuurlijk al gauw, omdat de taal die ze gebruikt in deze tijd zo ongewoon is. Maar de manier waarop ze de woorden naast elkaar zet, met een goed gevoel voor ritme, zorgen dat de zinnen me bij blijven. Vooral deze, hoewel ik die opschreef: ‘De kleine gecoleurde bladeren, dicht onder de vrucht zyn als een rood fatyn met geele vlakken vercierd, de kleine uitspuitzels aan de kanten groeijen voort als de rype vrucht afgeplukt is, de lange blaaden zyn van buiten ligt zee groen, van binnen gras groen, aan de kanten wat roodachtig met scharpe doornen voorzien.’ De tekening begeleidt de tekst perfect; de twee slagen er wat mij betreft in om naast elkaar hetzelfde en toch ook een ander verhaal te vertellen. Geen van de twee maakt de ander overbodig. Ze vormen samen een charmant geheel.

post by Rosa Smalen

“De letter… n” by Remco Campert and Wim Crouwel, 1966

At “The printed book : a visual history”, I was most interested in the book “De letter… n” by Remco Campert and Wim Crouwel. What attracted me most was its’ hard, yet clean graphic style. The book was opened on a page that read ‘raket bom mes oorlog’, ‘rocket bomb knife war’, in thick black letters of various sizes on an orange and white background. ‘Raket bom mes oorlog’: every word gets its’ own separate line. The opposite page displays an orange ball that may remind us of the sun or, in this context, may just as well be a nuclear explosion.

As the books in the exhibition are set up in glass cases, I wasn’t able to flip through the book so, maybe because of the content of this particular page, the graphics in “Het gejuich was massaal”, a book about dutch punk the the late 70s, immediately came to mind.

Looking at the page again, something else comes to mind.

Paul van Ostaijen was a Belgian poet who started experimenting with typography in his poems in order to translate, among other things, rhythm and sound to the reader. He started in the 1910s with quite safe try-outs, mostly experimenting with different letter-spacing and word-spacing. In the 1920s, he went all out and experimented in a big way with font types and sizes. His best known example is “Boem paukeslag” from his 1921 book “Bezette stad” (“Occupied city”). In this poem, single words – keywords really – are connected and form some sort of narrative through the use of typography. In a similar way, raket bom mes oorlog are keywords but form an understandable whole due to the rhythm and context that is created through the graphics and typography.
post by Lieven Lahaye

Have you ever had this strange, but uncertain feeling that you have experienced something before? An overwhelming sense of familiarity? A moment you are not sure if something similar or the exact same thing already happened? Then you belong to the majority of people who have had a déjà vu. Scientists are still unsure how to explain this phenomenon. Some try to link it to memory functions, claiming that familiar events can trigger memories of forgotten information. Some say it’s a more like a “memory check” of our brain: a signal that there is a conflict between what we think we’ve experienced and what we actually did experience.

There are other interesting theories as well that try to explain a déjà vu:

Precognition: We have the power of foresight. A déjà vu is the evidence that we are actually able to predict the future.

Reincarnation: We have lived before. A déjà vu is the surfacing of a hidden memory, evidence of a previous existence.

Higher dimension: Our consciousness actually exists outside of our physical bodies in a higher dimension, and when a déjà vu occurs, it’s a brief moment when that separation becomes clear.

Parallel universes: There are other versions of ourselves, living in parallel universes. A déjà vu is a moment we share a memory with an alter ego of another universe.

Precognition: A déjà vu is the evidence that we are actually able to predict the future.

Didn’t I see this before?

When browsing through the internet, we often experience this feeling of familiarity. Links and tags create a confusing net of intertwined information, often taking you back to a page you have been before. But because of the information overload we are exposed to, we are often not sure. Maybe you experienced it while surfing through the Design Blog, using the various tags. And you asked yourself, didn’t I see this before?

In a web app I created for iPads you can move along stories told by various images and collages of hands. Sometimes you end up at a point you think you have experienced before. But is it really the same, or does it just familiar? You might just have had a

déjà vu.

We didn’t ask the school, we sent Linda (Linda Van Deursen, head of graphic design department, red.) a mail to say what we needed, but yeah after that I don’t think we had any contact with the school again.” Niels smiles.

I’m sitting in the studio of two of the leading fashion photographers in the world, that of Auschka Blommers and Niels Schumm, sipping a coffee that Anuschka made for me.

“Well, it was our idea to use Rietveld students”, Niels explains when I ask them who decided to make the reportage, “It was the Art Director who wanted a street casting and COS was very sceptical to it at first. But it’s always a bit tricky to go out on the streets to find models; they are always staying only for a few days in the country or can’t make it for some other reason. So it was easier for us to pick students from Rietveld. Besides it felt more like a real group, closer to us somehow. We all knew about each other, so that makes it easier to work together.”

What we are talking about is the latest collaboration Anuschka and Niels had with COS, a smaller brand originally an offspring from H&M, with their new lookbook for 2012.

So they started with a casting, asking and selecting fifteen people from the school, of which ten pictures were chosen to be viewed by COS, who then picked out seven of them to be in the magazine.

“But yeah, they see something else than we do” Anuschka explains, “where we see portraits, they see too much blonds. Or too pail skin. Or not enough guys, and so forth.”

I find it interesting that Anuschka and Niels, being former students and employees at the Rietveld, are doing a lookbook for a commercial fashion brand where they make use of Rietveld students without consulting the academy. In this way, Rietveld is portrayed almost as a product, rather than an art school.

But let’s go back a bit. It all started 1996, the year Anuschka Blommers had her end exam show at the Rietveld Academy (Niels graduated a year before). There she met Job van Bennekom, he saw her work and was immediately impressed and wanted her and Niels to come and make a photo series for a new magazine he was working on.

“YOUR work? He saw your work? Here we go again!” Says Niels laughing.

“Ok, our work then”, Anuschka replies smiling. She heard that joke before.

“We’re like a married couple, fighting over little things”, he explains, “not knowing who did what or said what anymore.”

Anuschka and Niels were working more and more together until one day they couldn’t tell who made which pictures anymore.

“It’s ridiculous really, we got to that point were I would help Anuschka set up the light in the studio, and she would hold the camera and take a shot. So which name should it be under the picture? Foto: Anuschka Blommers, Light: Niels Schumm? That didn’t work.”

“So we started to work together as a duo and eventually you forget who did what. You start to believe that you did a lot more than you actually did!” Anuschka fills in.

They are very used to each other, one picks up were the other one is finishing a sentence and they easily slipp into jokes and laughter.

“So anyway, it was Jop who one year later introduced us to Viktor & Rolf for an exhibition some 15 years ago”, Anuschka says.

And that’s where it all started for Anuschka and Niels, they took their first step into the fashion industry and haven’t stepped out of there since then.

“I mean, we were basically doing what we did at the Rietveld, taking pictures of our family and friends, but the only difference now is that they wear big brands like Comme Des Garcons.”

“Then why did you want to do fashion photography?”

“Well we didn’t!” they both respond.

“We didn’t know anything about fashion or clothes or brands. We really had no clue! We just kept doing our thing, but we did it with the models wearing their fashion couture instead.” Niels says.

“We have some influence while taking the picture and printing it in a magazine, but what I find fascinating is that media then picks it up and it can go anywhere, it gets its own life. We don’t know what’s going to happen”, Anuschka explains.

“For instance last year at Queen’s Day, I actually met a woman who sold me one of my first pictures back to me, without knowing! She kept it for 15 years! That is amazing”, Niels says.

But Anuschka and Niels don’t just do portraits and fashion, they have also done work with still life photography, something that Niels was doing a lot in his Rietveld days, whereas Anuschka mostly did portraits back then. When asked what they prefer to do now they tell me that it’s the opposite: when they work separately on private projects Anuschka is the one trying out still life, whereas Niels is doing more portraits.

In their collaborate work they are trying to step away from Photoshop by taking surreal photos of objects floating, or tricking the eye, by only using lights and angles. For instants The Cube was one of the first photos that Niels wanted to make. He got a camera at the age of ten, and it fascinated him then how the perspective changes when you look through the viewfinder, so when you take the picture it never is quite the same as you saw it in reality. This notion he carried with him, he wanted to challenge this illusion by taking a picture with a professional camera, arranging this impossible cube.

“There was actually a young couple at our last exhibition at Foam, where the girl asked the boy; How do they do that?, and the boy answers; Photoshop, of course! We both were like Noooooo!”  Anuschka laughs.

It is fascinating to see how they try to make a real thing look like something that’s not real, like this impossible cube that looks like a cube from one angle and from another angle it’s just pieces of wood. So it’s very much about that, about this non-Photoshop. With little gestures they want to turn around the meaning of the image.

“You should always go back to yourself, and stay true to what you do”, Anuschka says in the end of the interview, smiling vaguely as if she’s possessing a secret that she knows already, and that we all have to discover for ourselves.

Radio Rietveld resident DJ Zachary Airhorn had a little chat with fashion designer Franciscus Van Der Meer about mislabeling, telling stories with garments, fashion jargon and living in London.

fashion -garments- are the most intimate and superficial layer that separates our minds and bodies from all around us. they cover our inner space. so what happens around us? what goes on in the outer space? wars, attacks on politicians, poverty, enough clean drinking water, hiv, riots in suburbia etc. the one word that connects all this is intolerance: angst & anxiety for the unknown and thus the threatening. so how do we deal with each other?
what do we show and what do we conceal? to what extend do you choose for yourself instead of those around you? what’s the relation between our own individuality and selflessness? what the confrontation like, when our inner space meets the outer space?

Franciscus van der Meer

The interview starts with Franciscus calling via Skype during a wonderful song by the Beach Boys, Heroes and Villains. We begin talking about his show at FOAM in Amsterdam, which took place in early 2012. Quickly the interview moves on to the issue of talkin fashion without visual aid, and thus the relation between his collections and this above text on his website from his collection …and I’ll show you mine :

We then speak about his work in London, his time with a label, and his work on his captual collection (a series of five outfits). Franciscus speaks in detail of his process, mentioning how the first outfits are generally more “confined”, while the later ones are calmer. He goes from “a place of aggravation to a place of peace.” The discussion then goes into the importance of atmosphere during a presentation, his annoyance with clichés relating to fashion, and his collaboration with friends documenting his work.

JOFF is the alter ego / the ‘brand’ of Joffrey Moolhuizen, created for his graduation collection in 2001 when he graduated from the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. In 2002 JOFF also graduated from the fashion institute in Arhnem. But instead of working in the conventional fashion designer way, making new collections every season, he wanted to establish his work through the art circuit. The designer who grew up in an extremely religious Jehovah’s Witness family, left for art school, where he “found himself” being forced to break with his family. His work originally began as a direct response to the restrictive culture he was raised in, with pieces hiding as much skin as possible (dramatically high collars and uncomfortable cuts are part of the appeal). His work can be seen as androgynous. The designer works on the fine line between femininity and masculinity. As he grew up as a designer, he became more self centered and focused his clothing designs on himself maybe even to the extreme. JOFF’s famous collection ofoffjoff is on the edge of narcissism. Every design is made precisely to his own measurements. So also the models should be approximately his size and build. In theory the work is meant for everybody (though you should be his size) and all the designs are totally unisex, but only avaible in one size, JOFFSIZE.
JOFF is a fashion designer who is multidisciplinary and tries to work in more than one approach to fashion by putting it in the art scene as performance, making books. He tries to combine more mediums to approach fashion, which I think is because of his Rietveld experience. About the Ofoffjoff collection JOFF made a book together with Julia Born (also studied at the Rietveld academie) who is a graphic designer. The book is called Ofoffjoff- one to one. Quoting mrs. Mo Veld who is a fashioncritic and fashion theory teacher at the Rietveld academie  “The  book is more than just the work of JOFF on paper, the classic medium to let fashion transcend beyond the original object of desire, like for instance a lookbook as it is called in fashion. OFOFFJOFF- one to one is a fashion object in itself giving the audience an alternative to discover in detail as well as relate to JOFF”S design, his style, his image, his size, one to one. JOFF and you. Much like early pop magazines featured life size “starschnitt” images of teenage icon. In this publication the designer again becomes the measure of all.”
The book earned two best designed books listings in 2007, by the best designed books foundation presented at the Stedelijk museum Amsterdam, as well as by the most beautiful Swiss books 2007

JOFF is also the artistic director/ curator of the Arhnem fashion biennale. Last year he tried to discuss the relationship between fashion and contemporary art in this city based exhibition. He didn’t want to make it in to a commercial fashion show because there are already to many of those. He sees fashion as the art that’s closest to the body, but tries to get more out of the biennale than only showing nice looking skirts, pants etc. he wants you to get the feeling of what fashion is in his eyes. His concept was a search to the identity and the phenomenon of fashion and also a declaration of love to fashion. He opened the biennale with a love letter to Amber which was also the title of the biennale (AMB first three characters of Amber stand for Arhnem Mode Biennale) which said:  “I’m addicted to your deception and temptation and will never be able to live without this on and off relation.”
The goal of JOFF is to show fashion in all it’s manifestations, it goes beyond clothing. He also wants to show that your hairstyle and the car you choose is part of fashion, fashion is everywhere in daily life. Also photographs, objects, texts and what not will be shown with the goal to show the social-cultural function of clothing. But also outside of the exhibition space there was a lot to see not just the beautiful fashion stores but also the best bakery and the best views in town. This is how he wants to show that fashion is everywhere around us.

I think he has a really rich Rietveld background that is visible in his work and the way he directs the AMB. Already by not trying to fit in in the fashion world but trying to put his work in the art circuit feels really Rietveld to me. Also that he tries to combine elements out of other working fields, not just making dresses but his fashion serves a different higher goal. He uses his designs to do performances, installations and publications and by doing this he goes a step further than most fashion designers
Also his work is maybe more conceptual than most fashion designers with his Ofoffjoff project and also using his religious  conservative background and not only to make beautiful looking clothes but clothes with a story

This conclusion is based on available facts. I tried to e-mail Mr JOFF but never got an answer.

http://www.moveld.com/?page_id=132

&Foam
Foam lies in the city center of Amsterdam, in the museum on the Keizersgracht. That is where they program a wide range of expositions. From world famous photographers to young and -as of yet- unknown talent. Grand long-term expositions are followed by rapid successions of  smaller expositions.
&Foam are special editions seeking new collaborations with exceptional artist, with intersecting  the fields of photography and other forms of art.
The current &Foam exposition at display in the Vijzelstraat in Amsterdam is about Philippe Vogelenzang

‘Six feet Under’
While visiting the ‘Fashion &Foam’ exposition one particular black and white photograph immediately caught the eye. A photograph depicting the bottom halves of seven soles. Shoe soles branded with the names of famous brands like Moshino, Prada, Hugo Boss, Lanvin, Emporio Armani en Vero Cuoio; designer shoes one and all.
After my tour of the rest of the exposition this piece again caught my eye, this time from a distance. The picture -while still recognizable as the same work- looks completely different from afar compared to what you see close up. These were not shoes, but gravestones!
The artist is playing tricks on his audience. He fools you into seeing the wrong thing, at least that is what it seems at first. The picture leaves a completely different impression from a distance and at second glance. It also made me curious as to the message of the piece. Then again the title is descriptive enough ; ‘Six feet Under’

‘Six Feet Under’

The young photographer (1982) lives in Amsterdam. He mostly works in fashion photography doing shoots for national and international fashion magazines. Digging deeper it soon became clear that he is a very active artist. The internet seems to be full of pictures by Philippe Vogelenzang. Many of the websites containing his pictures are about fashion photography. But not just any fashion photography. There always seems to be a story behind the pictures. A little something extra.

Interview with Philippe Vogelenzang

Does the academy still influence your work?
“No, the academy does not influence my work.
Before going to the academy I studied ‘Design en Styling’ after which I studied Art History for two years at the UVA (university of amsterdam) .”
After studying photography for a year at the ‘Koninklijke Academy for Fine Art’ in the Hague I decided to quit my studies and start to develop my own photographic aesthetics and intensity. The first year at the academy in the Hague did of course provide me with a solid base.”

How did you like the transition van studying at the academy to working in the field?
”I liked it a lot, I made many friends. And also made contact with a lot of photographers, they taught me a lot.”

Where do you get your inspiration?
“Inspiration comes from myself, the surroundings; everywhere basically.
I always work out my feelings and I make what I like and feel I want to make.
How it all eventually develops, as it is growing. Focused work is completely different of course.”

Do you like working with a theme?
“Yes, I like working with themes. I am especially drawn to start working on projects that tell a story and address important social issues.”

What is the relationship between your work at Fashion &Foam and you other work?
“In my photography i mainly focus on portraiture, fashion photography and art. Starting often with nostalgic of classical pieces. Aesthetics also play a big part in my works, that is where the fashion comes in. Fashion &Foam is a reflection of whom I am and what I strive for’’

In Fashion And Foam your work seems like conceptual photography, what do you think of this?
“My work is now with foam editions and is picked up that way and it seems that way more and more recognition for my work to occur, it is now as well as in foam in a more artistic angle. This is not something you can control it, but it is an honor if you work in this way is put down. “

What camera do you use?
” I was just sponsored a new camera, a Leica S System. Before that one I used a Canon 1Ds mark II”
One more interesting project in cooperation with Majid Karrouch is Project MODE MADE MAN – (for Amsterdam Museum

Vogelenzang in Foam see: http://www.foam.org/press/2012/en_foam