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

Sometimes it happens when you think that you do not have any relation with something, suddenly you find a chain of connections with yourself.

Richard Niessen – graphic designer working and living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Since 2006  he works together with his wife Esther de Vries. The main focus was – search for a relations between Richard Niessen and Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Richard Niessen graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 1996. Esther de Vries graduated from this Academy as well in 1998. I selected some fragments from interviews where they mention the Rietveld Academie:

“The class in which I graduated, in 1996, we all started on our own. I think there was a need for a new generation. We were the first generation of creatives that were used to using computers. I think there was also an economic boom; a lot of clients wanted to work with young designers. Linda van Deursen had been teaching us and she was very influential. Ajax won the Champions League in 95 so she called us her Champions League.” 

“It’s one of the best schools,” says Niessen, “because it takes students seriously. Also, great designers teach there. A lot of art schools in Holland are more like schools, but the Rietveld is different…”

“It’s also because there are lots of interesting students,” adds Esther de Vries. “Everybody wants to go there, so they get a great selection of people to choose from. It generates a lot of talent.” 

“Students at the Rietveld are taught that they shouldn’t ever expect to earn any money,” laughs Niessen. “Most people prefer to stay poor and do exciting work. Sometimes we’re asked to work with commercial clients but it never works out because they see a piece of work and say ‘we want that’.” 

“Rietveld is a quite particular school. Rather than being taught in a certain style, you are trained to have an attitude. Students aren’t given straightforward assignments like ‘make a letterhead’ or ‘design a business card’. You are encouraged to be autonomous, to adopt a more art-like approach, to work more conceptually. Of course at the time I wanted to make letterheads, but after I left I was thankful for the training. It’s attitude that prepares you for anything, and you have plenty of time to find your own style after you graduate. Now I always start by thinking about what is the most interesting aspect of an assignment for me.”

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summary

  As part of the graduation program at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, we were asked to write a thesis. I conducted a research into the early days of Modernism and Constructivism. One of the books on my list was the English translation of Die Neue Typographie, by Jan Tschichold.
This publication included an introduction by Ruari McLean, translator of the original, German version, who was also a personal friend of Jan Tschichold. On the first page of his foreword, McLean tells us that already in 1967, Tschichold asked him to translate Die Neue Typographie. McLean continues his introduction: “He planned it as a second, revised edition.” McLean states that he translated the greater part of Die Neue Typographie, incorporating all the revisions, but no publisher could be found. For the 1995 edition, McLean together with the University of California Press, made the editorial decision to translate the original text, treating it as a historical document.

original ©1928 "Die Neue Typographie" by Jan Tschichold - first English edition "The New Typography" ©1995

After finishing the introduction, I was curious about the revisions Tschichold made to his original text. McLean tells us in his introduction that after the death of Tschichold, in 1974, he placed the draft of his translation in the St Bride Printing Library. So, the next day I called the library. It took me some weeks, to finally get hold of the document, but these weeks gave the opportunity to research Tschichold’s personal and professional life.
Tschichold transmogrified from a traditional, German trained typographer, into a “true modern designer” (his own words), to finally reform back into his old working method, a classical and traditional approach to typography. Over time, he became his own frenetic antagonist, with Die Neue Typographie in the center.

What I found out, is that Tschichold during his life, tried, but repeatedly failed, to publish a revised edition of Die Neue Typographie. Throughout his life – while criticizing himself and others, who were still confederated to Die Neue Typographie movement – he worked on this document, trying to mitigate his rather excessive statements from his younger self. This revised edition of Tschichold was now fragmented in different archives. As an archaeologist I started to recollected these sparse pages and revisions by Tschichold, and incorporated all my findings into a version, as coherent as possible.
While working out the manuscripts by Tschichold, I tried to find out in what physical form, Tschichold wanted to present his revised edition. In correspondence with Piet Zwart, he speaks about presenting it in A4 format, a format he later labeled as: “devils format”. Die Neue Typographie was set in either Aurora Grotesk, or Akzidenz Grotesk. The choice of typeface, was decided by practical circumstances: no other sans serif font was available in an amount large enough, to set a whole book. I took this opportunity to design my own sans serif font, called Takhir. The shapes of Takhir were drawn, to tell a story about Modernism. But, it is too bumptious to appear, as pure, as Modernism would have wanted it to be.

This whole project resulted in the revised edition of Die Neue Typographie, containing all the revisions I collected in my research. The publication is introduced by a foreword, that I wrote as my thesis [presented as pdf at the end of this post], in which I present the historical background of Die Neue Typographie movement, and the publication by the same name. Beside all the revisions Tschichold made to his text, he made a number of personal comments, which reflected or criticized the content. The combination of these two, are really important for me, because it shows Tschichold’s difficult relationship to Die Neue Typographie. In one hand he rewrites its whole content, but he no longer agrees with its tenor. In the final publication, these personal comments are presented on errata’s, placed on the corresponding page of the content.
The whole publication is set in the typeface Takhir, which was finally created in two weights, both with Italics. Printed digitally in an edition of 50 copies 157 pages on 110 grams silk machine coated paper with a silkscreened cover, for sale at San Serriffe Bookstore [x].

text by Maarten Kanters [graduate student department of Graphic Design 2011] : more www.mrtnkntrs.nl

This is a cover design for a brochure of the Teleac, made by Wim Crouwel. It remembers me of when I was a kid and I saw for the very first time an Italian 1 euro coin. On the coin you see the Vitruvian man, made by Leonardo da Vinci in 1487. It shows de measurements of the human body, so he found out for example that the length of the outspread arms is equal to the height of a man, and that the length of the hand is one-tenth of the height of a man. The drawing itself is often used as a symbol of the essential symmetry of the human body. The drawing is based on the ideal proportions of the human body. The drawing was inspired by Vitruvius, who was an ancient Roman architect. He described the human figure as the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture.

It might be too much honor to Wim Crouwel for comparing him to Leonardo da Vinci, but I think that both of them have a certain accuracy and precise. Wim Crouwel worked with grids. He used them as a tool so that the drawing was in correct ratio and perfect proportions. If you look at the drawing of Wim Crouwel you could see the same; from one point of view you can always see a circle in the middle of the square. I think the drawing fits the meaning of the brochure perfect. I like this drawing because it’s so geometric, It looks architectural, industrial and above all very modern.

During the industrial Revolution there was a growth in advertising. They were able to print faster and more because of the better press-machines. At the turn of the century, art nouveau was the most important European art-movement. The movement used elegant undulating lines and flat planes filled with detail, and was often accompanied with a symbolism. It was used in architecture, fabric design, and the industrial arts, but it was especially a big role in graphic design.

Art nouveau inspired many artists to break with academic art and unite into autonomous groups.Peter Behrens and Henri van de Velde, both with art nouveau backgrounds. They were both inspired by the arts and crafts movement, Behrens and Van de Velde pointed on the involvement of artists in industry. Behrens designed for the EAG (general electric company) their architecture, advertising, products, logo, and printed work. Van der Velde was a leading figure among the artists who aimed to bring art to industry, but he was not alone in wanting reform. In 1907 there were a group of German industrialists, architects and designers who formed the Deutcher Werkbund.

It was an association aimed to bring art and industry together. Van der velde had been one of the founding members. Called to germany, at the turn of the century, as the Grand Duchy of saxony-Weimar’s artistic adviser for industry. His job was to ‘raise the level of arts and crafts production. The Werkbund was the main forum for discussion and the means of publicizing avant garde ideas.

A drawing of Lucian Bernhard’s in 1906 produced a radical change in advertising posters. It was the result of a design contest. On the poster you see two matchsticks and the word Priester on a plain background. This started the ”plakatstil” (poster style) emphasizing clarity and simplicity. Many designers who worked in this mode followed, included hans Rudi Erth, Julius Klinger, Ludwich Hohlwein and Edward McKnight kauffer. Emil Cardinaux designed the first Swiss poster similar to the German plakatstil, and, inspired by Cardinaux, you could say there was a clear trend in the Swiss posters by 1910. With realistic images and simple typography this became known as Basel realism. Leading designers were Niklaus Stoecklin and Otto Baumberger, whose posters were characterized by a hyper realistic approach.

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“In zijn affiches zit alles samengebald. Een poster moet een voorbijganger die met twee volle boodschappentassen op weg is naar een sissende bus, in een fractie van een seconde raken, naar binnen trekken of bespringen als een kale dwerg”. Dick Okker, het Parool, 5 februari 2011

Anthon Beeke is en was een graficus met een sterke wil om nieuwe dingen te maken en barstte altijd van ideeën. Hij was met zijn werk, en dan met name in zijn posters, erg op de grens bezig van wat mensen nog konden aanvaarden en niet. Hij hield zich er bezig mee hoe mensen op iets reageerden. Sommige posters riepen veel reacties op. Ze werden van de muur afgetrokken, beklad of kapot gemaakt. De affiches die hij maakte moesten op je afkomen als je er voorbij loopt. Dus die reactie van mensen was precies wat hij wilde.
In 1970 zei hij dat hij het grafisch ontwerpen niet wilde gebruiken om dingen mooi te maken, zoals in die tijd veel werd gedaan, maar dat hij de mensen bewust wilde betrekken bij de situatie waarin ze verkeerden. Het moest een soort confrontatie zijn. “Een affiche moet shockeren”, was een van zijn uitspraken.

Toen ik deze laatste opmerking las, begon ik me wat af te vragen: Hoe zou ik deze posters beleven? Voel ik dit ook als een confrontatie? Wat voor reactie roepen ze bij me op?

Ik had ze natuurlijk op internet al vlug langs mijn ogen laten schieten, al scrollend, op zoek naar informatie. Maar ik had de affiches nog nooit in het echt gezien. Toen ik ze dus voor het eerst ‘real life’ zag, kwamen ze echt binnen. Ze waren heel anders dan dat ik ze op internet had gezien. Intrigerend, precies wat de bedoeling was van de posters. “Dit gevoel wat ik heb, is natuurlijk precies wat ie wilde bereiken”, dacht ik.  Ze zijn ook zo simpel. Alleen een foto en een titel. Op de foto’s zie ik lichamen of delen van lichamen die de poster bedekken. Dat is het eerst wat opvalt, daarna de titel. Alsof de titel ondergeschikt is aan de foto. Pijnlijk, dood, donker, maar ook passie en seks is wat ik zie. Wat een lef moet die man hebben gehad! Het zijn beelden die je pakken. Anthon Beeke maakte deze beelden gewoon!

De suggestie van seks blijft hangen na dat ik de posters had gezien. Als voorbeeld neem ik de drie posters hierboven. Ik vind het raar om ernaar te kijken. Ik voel me op een of andere manier betrapt. Terwijl ik gewoon naar een poster sta te kijken. Sta ik nou zonder dat ik er voor heb gekozen naar een seksueel beeld te kijken? Of maak ik dat er zelf van in mijn hoofd? Want bij de poster van Leonce en Lena is de suggestie van seks veel groter dan dat er werkelijk seks wordt afgebeeld.

De poster van de voorstelling van Troilus en Cressida valt ook erg op. Hoewel ik deze nooit in het echt heb gezien, dus alleen op internet, blijft hij toch in mijn gedachten hangen. Ik weet waar ik naar kijk, maar op een of andere manier is het ook een vervreemd beeld. Er klopt iets niet. “Wat was het idee om het zo op een poster te zetten?”, gaat het door mijn hoofd.

In dit affiche verbeeldt het lichaam van de vrouw letterlijk het paard van Troje, in het verhaal een houten paard, waarmee Romeinse soldaten Troje binnen vielen. De oorlog in Troje was ook daadwerkelijk bij het schaken van een vrouw begonnen. Bovendien was het motto van Gerardjan Rijnders voor zijn voorstelling: “Seks is oorlog”. Dit wilde Anthon Beeke in zijn affiche voor de voorstelling ook uitdrukken. Hij fotografeerde daarom een naakte, met olie ingesmeerde vrouw die voorover gebukt staat, met op haar rug een leren paardentuigje. Hij noemde zijn poster een feministisch statement.

De posters werden destijds gewoon op aanplakborden geplakt. Maar daarna bekrast, betekend of er gewoon afgetrokken. De vrouwenbeweging protesteerde fel tegen sommige posters van Beeke, en dan met name de poster van Troilus en Cressida. Sommige theaterdirecteuren durfden de posters zelfs niet de presenteren in hun theater. En hielden ze op bepaalde momenten bedekt.

Hoe reageren mensen nu op dit soort beelden. Op beelden met naakt die de suggestie van seks oproepen?  Bij de tentoonstelling begin dit jaar in het Museum Jan van der Togt in Amstelveen werden veel van Beeke’s posters getoond, maar er werd getwijfeld op de beroemde, omstreden poster van Troilus en Cressida voor toneelgroep Globe wel getoond moest worden. De poster was misschien te pervers om te tonen aan het publiek. Waarom nu niet en toen wel?

Is naakt of (de suggestie van) seks dan nu echt nog zo’n groot probleem? Je zou denken dat we wel wat gewend zijn bijvoorbeeld met de reclamecampagnes tegenwoordig van Diesel of de American Apparel. Blijkbaar wel. Om een voorbeeld te noemen, kwam er in januari dit jaar een kalender uit van de Italiaanse fotograaf Oliviero Toscani. Op elke pagina, bij iedere maand staat een close-up van het vrouwelijk geslachtsdeel. In Italië is er veel ophef over ontstaan. De feministen zijn boos en vinden de foto’s een belediging voor de vrouwelijke waardigheid. De kalenders mogen nu ook niet verder uitgegeven worden.

Volgens de vrouwen op de foto en de fotograaf zelf, zijn de foto’s een symbool van “untamed feminine beauty”. Volgens Toscani is zijn werk gericht tegen de standaard modefoto’s waar vrouwen mooi opgemaakt zijn en mooie kleren dragen. Hier wil hij juist de puurheid van de vrouw laten zien.

Met zijn vagina-kalender is hij in een bepaald opzicht met hetzelfde bezig wat Anthon Beeke deed. Hij zit ook erg op de grens van wat mensen nog kunnen aanvaarden en wat niet. Mensen voelen zich geconfronteerd met iets wat ze liever niet willen zien en kunnen het niet snappen.
Ik zou daarom willen afsluiten met een quote van Anthon Beeke zelf:

‘Tolerantie moet je steeds weer bewijzen en dat kan alleen door het te tarten.’

Since I have grown up I have been exposed to more and more designs and designers. During my research of Wim Crouwel, I was introduced to Swiss Graphic Design and Joshep Müller-Brockman in particular, as this designer was a big inspiration for him. Müller-Brockman was one of the great pioneers in the New Graphic Design movement, (also known as Swiss Graphic Design), educator and writer who helped define the movement within the 50’s. It represented what designers would consider cleanliness, readability, objectivity and structure. For me, the simplistic color schemes and structure within the design really speaks to me.

Müller-Brockmann began his career as an illustrator, but it was not until his turn to graphic design that he found his true calling. He is perhaps best-known for creating mathematical grid style to provide an overall orderly and unified structure.[x]

Müller Brockmann’s wide-range passions, interests, and commitments enable one to approach his work from several points of view, and his influence in graphic design extends well beyond his familiar poster work. He also was an accomplished photographer, often integrating experimental photography, photomontages, and light paintings into his design work. He loved music and over the course on many years made the now famous poster designs for the Zurich Tonhalle (Concert Hall), which were highly influenced by the “feeling” aroused by music. Josef Müller-Brockmann’s ideas are mostly related to abstract concepts, seen in many of his Zurich Tonhalle Concert posters. He argued that music is an abstract art therefore should be “interpreted abstractly,” and based strictly upon the established rules of typography and a grid.[x]

Nevertheless, all his works were built upon a grid system and in Müller-Brockmann’s book Grid Systems in Graphic Design he describes his process of using the grid and specifically reinforces the purpose and importance of its use and simplicity. Labeling it “constructive design,” Brockmann describes the Swiss style as economic and rational, and it is interesting that even those designs that appeared free of structure were rigidly organized beneath the surface.

What I like about the series of posters for the Zürich Ton Hallen, designed in 1960, is the angular look on structure and alignment within the text and within the shapes and space. The two tone color scheme also helps it to visually stand out. These posters were one of the revolutionary turning points in contemporary graphics. And it was not just another transitory style- it defined a contemporary graphic environment worldwide.

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One poster stuck to my mind while visiting Crouwel’s exhibition in Stedelijk Museum. It caught my attention because it seemed a bit different from others- from really systematic and clear ones although, the letters still remained in the grid. The thick black graphical line covered white sheet of paper and red type announced the Bissiere’s exhibition in Stedelijk.

I was trying to figure out what that black dynamic line wants to say to me. It is obvious that it is something about Roger Bissier’s work. Bissiere was a french tachisme representative in whose paintings black outlines are quite a common thing. Therefore, I was wondering if the graphical part is an extract from the painting or engraving  or it is Crowels personal interpretation about painter or maybe even something else. So, I kept thinking about Crowels way of dealing with the ideas, but still the main questions remain in my head: how Crouwel constructs the concepts-messages and how his work communicates with us?

I found it difficult to understand how the image represented the Bissiere’s exhibition as I relied on my small research about the painter. It seems that  Crouwel was struggling with this poster. Maybe Bissieres work didn’t really appeal to the designer and he couldn’t  deal with it in his usual way so, in the end the poster became different in the context of all Crouwels work. In the end I found out that he used a fragment from Bissiere’s autograph on the poster. Which just made my doubts about struggling grow stronger.

Roger Bissière 1886- 1964 France

There is a great contrast between the work of Wim Crouwel and his own notes, as seen in the logbook of Total Design.
His handwriting looks chaotic, at least to an outsider, while in his work he strives for clear and honest communication, in a clean tight way.
At the start of perfect order, there is chaos, or more exactly: apparent chaos. True chaos is a myth, when you look more closely, you can see patterns, rhythm, structures and ideas, waiting to be discovered.
Creativity seeks order in seemingly randomness, extracts it and places it in a new context, space or system.
In a way the attempt of Wim Crouwel, to make communication universal understandable, is an attempt to make the world less exciting.
Creative opportunities disappear, being inventive is more difficult and there is nothing left to the imagination.
There is an understandable need for order.
Chaos can be poignant, one might be ashamed by his or her own disorderliness, but flawless order is a dull and static state.
Without chaos no creativity.

In the physical world absolutely all surfaces are transparent or opaque. For example a concrete wall — it is a completely opaque element. But with the help of different computer programs we can make even a concrete wall transparent and may apply transparent effect to a video.
I adore the “clean” design, where is only information and no superfluous elements. So, the chosen work does not fit my taste, but that kind of design always attracts my attention.

Another very good way to use a blend of transparent layers, when you need to show two (or more) elements at once and you haven’t much space on one page. Wim Crouwel did it as a professional, he gives us the opportunity to consider both of the cabinets and at the same time takes care of the volume of the catalog, which is also important.
For example, I chose another more cheerful work — it’s Dries Wiewauters‘s poster “Deconstructing Mickey Mouse”, again space is saved, and thus nothing is lost, but also something won.

In general, thoughtful design wins!

The Design Museum London celebrated the prolific career of the Dutch graphic designer Wim Crouwel in this, his first UK retrospective, “Crouwel a Graphic Odyssey”. Regarded as one of the leading designers of the twentieth century, Crouwel embraced a new modernity to produce typographic designs that captured the essence of the emerging computer and space age of the early 1960s.
This 1:27:00 long interview and presentation of Wim Crouwel (graphic Designer) and Mel Crouwel (architect) was moderated by Rick Poynor (design journalist/writer) to celebrate that occasion spring 2011. Subsequently the exhibit was held in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam which could be considered a home coming for the eminence grise of Dutch graphic design aswell as the Museum itself.
interview registration by Alice Masters. Exhibition catalog design by Spin.

more? check out this very personal and summarizing presentation of Crouwel putting the exhibition in context. By Crane.tv at the Design Museum, 29 March 2011.

one of the most enjoyable jobs for a graphic designer into music is certanly the making of record sleeves. capture and synthetize the music and concept of the record in just one final visual/phisical product. after the record sleeve is set, both music and image are intertwined , giving one to the other a new shape , or, in the best case, exalting one another meanings and get to a new more complete concept-idea … usually is a personal overview /interpretation of the designer , but as well a clear and graphical unharmful attempt to translate/tale/interpretate the music work into “image”.
Never like in this case i found myself stunned-staring at the semplicity of the cover of Joy Division’s first official compilation album (released after 8 years from Ian Curtis’ death) while wondering about at this massive retrospective of one of the masters of dutch graphic design Wim Crouwel . The cover features the band name written in his original white font above the album title elsewritten using the New Alphabet typeface ( created by Crouwel in 1967 ) in neon green over a dead black background covering the rest of the sleeve… this indeed sounds pretty much like the music of joy division itself : dark, personal, experimental, progressive,  jagged and sometimes difficult to “read” …

The stamps Wim Crouwel designed for the Dutch postal service PTT were used for 25 years. The first thing that came to my mind after hearing this was the amount of tongues that must have licked these stamps. 25 years is a long time. Millions of letters were decorated by this sophisticated square. Figuratively speaking, it was the key to another persons mailbox.

When we look at the stamps we see a clear design, a distinct communication speaks from it. Stripped of any adornment it is a severe design to me. Extremely functional. Exactly what Crouwel was aiming for. Everything that cited emotion was left out. Functionality above all. It seems very contradictory to me that a design so rational was used for such an emotional communication process. I find this contrast very interesting. On the one hand there is Crouwel, driven by a concise aesthetic, succeeding in his job. On the other hand there are the sober Dutch people, whose eyes have looked at these stamps more than a billion times, yet most of them have not seen the aesthetic essence of it.

Remembering names is impossible for me – it has always been and probably always will be. That is why I was so thrilled about the poster-design for an exhibition about Edward Kienholz.

poster design by Wim Crouwel / art work by Florian Maurersberger

When I was walking through the rooms of the Stedelijk-Museum I was overwhelmed and not in a positive way. In There was such a similarity for me in everything that my eyes were jumping from one design to the next and they couldn’t rest because it was so simple that there was nothing I could get a grip on. That was the moment when I got my first doubts about the concept of Crouwel’s design. I wasn’t really sure if his minimized way of design is enough to translate to people what the text or exhibition is about.

But then I stood in front of the poster for Edward Kienholz. The name didn’t ring a bell in my head. Maybe there was a light glimmer that I heard this name before. But through the way Crouwel designed the poster I realized that I knew the artist. I went to an exhibition about his work in a Gallery in Berlin in 2009. A lot of his works are dealing about different social issues during the time that he was living in(1927-1991) but he also worked with problems that are still current for example the superficiality of the metropolitan society. What impressed me the most about him was how he emphasized his critical point of view just by showing different situations from your every-day-life and without pointing out the problem too obvious.

After seeing this poster from Wim Crouwel I had to admit that sometimes it just needs a dark colored scale and a very clear positioned American flag to give an impression what the artist is about.

So I had to let go of some of my doubts about his way of design.

So, where is actually the Stedelijk Museum ? I don’t know Amsterdam very well. I live here for three weeks now and I’ve never been in this museum before. Also I had never heard of Wim Crouwel. When I was there in the museum, I was looking for something that I could recognize. Something that gives me a feeling of tranquillity. Something that makes me happy, inspires me. But It was more difficult than I had expected.

All of the works, all posters were so straight. Everything seemed so finished, so correct, so perfect. All straight lines and letters were at the right place. It scared me a little. I couldn’t look at it for a long time.

Right in the middle of all these posters on the wall, there was one that was different than the others. It gave me rest. The wild brushstrokes in between all these straight graphic lines. The straight lines which all fit in the same grid. But the wild lines gave me a feeling of recognition.

I stared at it for a long time. It was the signature of an artist [x]. I began to think. All posters at the exhibition were made by the same designer who used the same graphic grid. This posters must be made in the same grid too. But does the signature also fit in that model? Or was this an exception to the rule?

It’s a good thing for art or designwork to raise questions.

'Municipal Inferno', uitgave nº 6 van De Enschedese School.

The freedom of control.

What really fascinated me about our talk with Frans Oosterhof, was his way of talking about the freedom of control. When everything is made by hand, you lose control. Every item gets unique.

I think that is the reason, when I go down in the basement at school, I feel like going to heaven. When I enter the basement, I lose all control and works from a great passion in silkscreen and letterpress. I let stuff happen.

I love the physicality and the diversity in every work. You may have one starting point, one stencil, but end up with 10 individual works.

I am a control freak but love the freedom of control.

[by Kristine Andersen]

from basics

This “primitive” design when no computers were in use took me to the beginnings of poster design that plays such a huge role in modern world .  As to understand what is happening now it is good to have a look in the past. I took myself to the very beginning of polish poster design as this country is very famous for.

I picked one of the most known poster designer Tadeusz Gronowski that reminded me of the words said by Frans Oosterhof that skills play large part of self development and can lead you to the unexpected results. It is also a way to explore new fields of creating that may affect your work later on.So, i chose him as an example to show that innovation , new skills and experimenting resulted in posters with new light and fresh background for innovative design.

“Instead of merely adapting his painterly style to the poster format, he sees in it the opportunity to create something new, indeed a new form of artistic expression. He is one of the first artists to consciously integrate the typography with the illustration and instead of choosing the obvious he offers the viewer a different look into the subject, often displaying a disposition for the light and the humorous which endeared him to the viewers.”

For more examples of early poster designs

[by Agnieszka Zimolag]

The secrets of the Basic Year

Frans Oosterhof is not only the key figure behind the Enschedese school, but also behind us: the basic year. So what are the secrets of the fist year study of Rietveld?

The year is there to tease us, to turn things upside down, so that at one point, after being troubled, we notice that actually it works, we can do it! We have confidence and means!

Also the January project is already a tradition to shake the dust of the christmas holidays back home from our shoulders. I was amazed by the stories of knocking down all the walls of the third floor and people from one class flying naked in the sealing of the school.

The groups are made with intuition, but carefully thought. First thing, to get the biggest possible mix of age, gender and nationality together. We also heard they look at our pictures, what attitude the face signals, how do the names sound together. It’s all part of the big plan!

Group-B Basic year 2010/11

How did we all get together? It is not a coincidence!

(by Katja Hannula)

Enschedese School

ft Renaldo and The Loaf

Enschedese School could be considered as a movement that’s similar to Fluxus, Dada, and the Nul-beweging, but according to Frans Oosterhof it’s not considerable as something that we should describe as a recognizable style.

According to the music that Frans Oosterhof played, and the things that he did reminded me of a band called: Renaldo and The Loaf. The band made lyrics that we could describe as: disorientating, hilarious, ungraspable, and ´it´ does not mock certain things and is also not considered as anarchistic, but maybe more nihilistic by denying that:
A. There is no style connected to them
B. Playing around creates a fundamental or essential work
C. Experimental, and considerable as avantgarde

Most strong connection to this non-movement [Enschedese School] is Fluxus:
A. It is not a movement or a style
B. Intermedia

George brecht considered it as ‘the smallest unit of a situation’ and i could also conclude that some fluxus-art-works could be overlooked as a art work [Duchamp’s Fountain, Manzoni’s feces etc.]

Conclusion is:

it was no movement + it did had characteristic qualities of other movements = a statement without belonging to something.

(by Petros Orfanos)

Personal Strength

On Thursday we met Frans Oosterf, a retired teacher of Rietveld Academie and a former founder of the Enschedese School. Within a couple of hours he explained to us how the movement emerged in the late 1970’s in the small town of Enschedese where some art students denied to specialize and decided to make a second foundation year to experiment more with their creative ideas using a variety of media that they chose for themselves. It wasn’t until the next year where the same people decided to move all together in a communal studio space, working in a collective way with their teachers and publishing magazines and vinyl’s of their songs and artworks. The Enschedese school lasted for several years as an independent art movement using reproducing techniques managed to send their Art by post to their subscriber within using comical elements and repetitive patterns.
Personally I admire truly their revolutionary spirit and I wish that I would one day find myself in the position of doing something similar.

(by Claire Bamplekou)

Is it possible to be ‘style less’

Frans Oosterhof said that he once promised to be and remain style less.
Don’t get me wrong I was amazed and very much inspired by this man, but still I wonder if it is possible to avoid a certain style.
I do understand that he meant that he and the other members of the Enschedese School didn’t choose one medium to reveal their thoughts, but still it made me think of how and if it is possible, to escape from any style at all. When I looked at the work of the Enschedese School I still detected a certain overall style, I do not already want to say that that’s a bad thing. If we see for example the song ‘van Agt Casanova‘ and the ‘fake stamps‘ and the strip of ‘de Doka van Hercules’ but also in the painted crockery I sense the same kind of spirit, the same kind of style. Al these works mock certain settled persons or phenomenons in society.

Actually now that I’m thinking about it more and more, I do not think that an artist should be style less at all. Of course he or she should try a lot of different media and should not be bound to certain usages. But every time an artist expresses his or her ‘obsession*’ derived from the outside world and every time it is an obsession of the same person (or group), that is creating an overall ‘style’. Besides this (visual)artists have a strong visual intuition, I don’t think we (maybe this sounds arrogant) are able to escape from that! Of course we can make it as wide as possible, but making it to wide would also implicate a kind of indifference, a complete commonplace for an artist.
What I mean by an obsession is a kind of affection or unease about something in the outside world that inspires to make a work of art. The way such an obsession comes to us, how we interpret them or express them is I think quite personal (groups only arise from sympathizers, by whom this personal process works quite a bit the same, it’s not likely that you’ll find yourself in a group with people whose thinking process you don’t understand at all.)

(by Liza Prins)

Loving it to Death

On the cover of an EP a girl stands in front of a piano. She is wearing a t-shirt with piano keys on it. Standing on the piano is a tiny piano. On the back cover there is a little biography explaining in a very joyless and matter-of-fact way that this girl likes playing piano and makes songs. There’s a certain insanity subtly presented here that’s hard to grasp and easy to miss. Even though the creations done by Frans Oosterhof and the rest of the Enschedesche School were too sharp-witted to simply call them parodies, they certainly expose the apparent clumsiness of popular media in the Netherlands of the seventies. The media and objects created by the Enschedesche School seem to, in a subdued kind of way, reflect the madness of the world that surrounded them. I believe the Enschedesche School were cynically honouring these stupid media by loving it’s form to death.Personally, the meeting with Frans Oosterhof reminded me of the joy and excitement of creating things/media/objects/situations/ART according to one’s own vision and of the significance of Doing It Yourself.

Besides “Van Agt Casanova” it is difficult to find any music by Enschedesche School’s 1000 Idioten label online. However here’s the chords of one of their releases so you can play it yourself!

[by Senne Hartland]

maybe I’m in time!

Without being pretentious, last Friday gave me the impression to understand a bit of my contemporary time. Frans Oosterhof told about his studies in art academy and his years in the Enschedese School movement in the 70s/80s’. The Gerrit Rietveld Academie follows the same way of thinking, revolutionary at the time and strongly contemporary nowadays. Frans also reorganized the Rietveld’s Basic Year, which he did several times going against the idea of taking a specific direction in a department. To hear the foundations of the Foundation was revealing and encouraging: the Enschedese School is just one of the influences that stays at the bottom of a contemporary way of teaching and learning. Frans says that in others academies “art” is not possible to explain, they teach every technique, but not how to be an artist because they don’t know what is the magic potion for that. He believes that art or not we should understand nothing around us, without right and wrong and stupid school critics, we need to surprise ourselves. We don’t need to choose a direction because we should say what we want, how we want and again swimming in millions of possibility. No prejudices about media and contents ,of course, and feel the education as moment of tryout and living together.
I felt part of something bigger, also if I’m not supposed to understand and only living making art accidentally etc… I had the real intuition to be part of a cultural machine working to produce a precise thought. I know we will write the history of today in the future, but I felt perfectly in time to perceive by intuition the reason to stay exactly where I am.

Drawing a tree, by Bruno Munari

the Third Paradise, by Michelangelo Pistoletto

[by Sara Cattin]

MAD = BAD = BETTER

Taking part of some of the treasures of the Enschedese School’s vast production; I started thinking about MAD. I always loved the magazine when I was a kid, and my parents had some really old ones at home. When I saw all the printed media and witty designs in combination with mind-bending but tempting objects, it felt like the MAD Magazine had entered another sphere and all of Harvey Kurtzman’s old drawings and perverted fantasies came to life, walking and talking just as lifelike as Oosterhof in front of me. At one point I got really attached to the little brush-bird (the one made with pencils and grey wings), and I was sure I’d seen it before as a sketch. Searching my mind and especially old MAD archives, I couldn’t find the original source I was looking for. But it was satisfying enough, because playing around with it confirmed to me that if you put your mind to it, visions/dreams/unhealthy fantasies can come true. Even if it doesn’t make any sense at all to yourself or your audience. (If you print this and wear it at school I’ll give you an ice cream.)

[by Olga Nordwall]

De kopjes van Frans Oosterhof

Frans Oosterhof heeft tijdens zijn verblijf aan de Enschedese-school een groot project gehad met al bestaand ziekenhuis kopjes. deze vijfhonderd kopjes en schotels verfde hij subtiel met kleine verf spatjes en druipers.
Wat ik kon zien bij de kopjes die hij mee had genomen, leek het vaak op de kring, die je krijgt als je koffie morst, maar dan gekleurd. Dit was zo subtiel gedaan dat de schoonmaakster van Frans een paar jaar geleden een deel van deze kopjes die hij nog bezat heeft weggegooid. de schoonmaakster dacht namelijk dat het mengbekertjes waren die niet meer schoon te krijgen waren. Zelf zag ik ook eerst niet wat er zo bijzonder was aan deze kopjes, maar juist omdat het zo subtiel gedaan is, zijn de kop en schotel het project van Frans Oosterhof dat mij het meest bij gebleven is.

[by Casper Braat]

De Stijl versus Wendingen

Wendingen magazine 1929 #3 on Diego Rivera. Cover by Victor Huszar

The magazines de Stijl and Wendingen were both founded around 1918. De Stijl was connected to the artistic movement of De Stijl and Wendingen was connected to the Amsterdamse school. These two movements are completely different, if not opposite to each other (De Stijl being functional and minimal, only using the primary colors and black white and grey, and the Amsterdamse School playing with different colored bricks and all these ornaments). Logically these two magazines felt like competitors when they started to publish.

Wendingen magazine 1921 #4 on Frank Lloyd Wright and Berlage. Cover by El Lissitzky

That’s why I was completely confused when I saw a cover of Wendingen depicting a work of El Lissitzky, a constructivist artist and what I’ve always been told is that constructivism was kind of close to the Stijl. This issue was about: Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture!!! I always thought that he was the one heavily influencing the Stijl. What turned out to be the case was that the Dutch back in those days weren’t really making ‘groups’. They stayed individuals and were inspired by different sources and that’s why, how different the movements may be, also individuals brought characteristics of the Stijl into the Amsterdamse school and the other way around.
Isn’t that just great: they were existing movements but there seems to be no rules or boundaries in taking aspects of other movement, you are free to be inspired by everything.

[by Liza Prins]

SMELL it, LICK it, SUCK it, BITE it, CHEW it, EAT it.

4 years ago I went on a study trip to a curtain great house, build by a curtain great architect, that I do not remember. And just before I went in, my previous teacher at Architecture and Design, Aalborg (Denmark), told me and the rest of my class, that we would get goosebumps, when we first got inside this building. He was in love. Than I went in – but no goosebumps. I apparently did not feel a thing.
Only now I understand, what he was taking about – but in another context.
Today I was placed in front of these amazing art magazines from the 1920s named “Wendingen”. I really felt it.
I tried to smell it.
I was just about to lick it.
I would love to suck it!
I wonder how it would be to chew it.
I really wanted to eat it.

[by Kristine Andersen]

Inside and Outside the Amsterdam Ring

>As the capitol of the Netherlands Amsterdam is a popular place for new businesses and companies. Still you see that a lot of these companies place there new architectural masterpieces outside of the ring. Is this because of the high ground prices inside the ring?

> On a trip trough Amsterdam we quickly discover that the historical buildings of the city are not only in the center-canal areas. Around these canals you see a band, almost like a protecting layer, made of architecture that is maybe even historical as its center. The buildings and blocks give you an unique look on the wide collection of the Amsterdam School architecture. This is something that a lot of tourists miss when they come to the city: icons like ‘het schip’ in the Spaardammerbuurt, mercatorplein, the Berlage Lyceum and the many blocks and bridges through the city. Maybe this is a good thing; in this way it stays as an unique treasure that functions as a decor for the the daily life of many. Lets hope this architecture will be protected in the future and won’t be replaced by transient cheap Almere buildings that will be replaced every twenty years.

[by Taro Lennaerts]

B-Group goes “Wendingen”

[click left for English / click right for Dutch]

[by Henk Groenendijk]

A call from the past

In some places the atmosphere doesn’t seem to change with time. Regardless of new interior pieces, integrated technological devices or relatively fresh layers of paint on the walls, you just come in there and dive into the setting of decades ago.

That happened to me when I stepped into the hallway of a former post office, which is now turned into the museum called ‘t Schip. Blue shiny tiles on the walls and floor, wooden benches, iron bars around and the coolness of the air immediately placed me into the first half of the previous century, when the work there was humming: post office workers were stamping, sorting or preparing for dispatch numerous letters and parcels, customers were writing addresses on envelopes, buying stamps and waiting for the telephonist to scream out loud their name and the number of the telephone booth where they could pick up the phone and hear the voices of their far away families or friends.

The booths are still there. With exactly the same heavy door, yellow tiles on the walls and little table. And even though the place of the telephone was taken by the modern computer you still get a feeling that if you come in you can hear those voices. The voices of the past.[x]

photo by Gordon Parks

[by Anastasia Starostenko]

A wrestling match

If de Amsterdamse School and de Stijl were to fight each other in a wrestling match de Stijl would totally kick de Amsterdamse School’s ass. De Amsterdamse School would be wasting time executing these beautifully choreographed moves while de Stijl would engage in some straight on pounding with it’s massive angular fists and totally destroy de Amsterdamse School’s ass. Then de Amsterdamse School would attempt to retaliate by trying to impress de Stijl through jumping around like a ballerina but like a true wrestler de Stijl would bellow out “None of this fairy Efteling crap!” And pound de Amsterdam School straight into the floor, leaving only some bricks in a beautiful brownish/red color and a perfectly square hole in the ground.

Doctors wouldn’t be able to restore de Amsterdamse School to his old self since the resources are no longer around. De Stijl however, would collapse some days after the match as it would turn out his sturdy build was way overestimated and so the next week’s competition would be between a Bijlmer “Honinggraad Flat” and a temporary complex of sea containers.

[by Sanne Hartland]

Typotecture

Wendingen Dudok-issue cover design by Wijdeveld • Hilversum Cityhall by Dudok
dive into the exiting world of Typotecture [x]

[by Casper Braat]

Architectura et Amicitia

The ‘Amsterdamse School’ is a interesting architectural-style and is partly als known by it’s social-aware approach. The style belongs to a neo-style and contains architects such as: van der Mey, de Klerk [known by his work ‘the ship’], Kramer, and others.

I think it’s interesting that the ‘Amsterdamse School’ does not only stand for architectural knowable realizations, but that there’s also a whole movement for furniture [tables, chairs, clocks, lamps, textile etc], and even the idea of a ‘typical type font’, > Amsterdamse School is everywhere.

Wendingen was a interesting magazine [launched by the group, Architectura et Amicitia, of architects, artists etc] and was mainly focused on the ‘Amsterdamse School’.

I see this style as organic and yet non-organic, same as that it looks formal and family-aware. It is all and non, and that strikes me the most.

[by Petros Orfanos]

My Little Time Machine

Being born and raised in Amsterdam and going around this city for 23 years I can still every now and then catch this utopian feeling by walking past the frozen canals in the winter or taking the ferry to the north part of the city by sunset, but I sometimes wonder what it must feel like being a tourist in my own city discovering new places and seeing things you have never seen before. The 5 minutes I spend inside the Scheepvaarthuis was the first time in a while that I felt this way. For this very short period, for just these 5 minutes I was a tourist, a tourist who stepped in a Time machine and was able to see inside a little part of her city from almost a hundred years ago.

[by Giulia Shah]

pelican + crystal + ship = Amsterdamse school

What made the Amsterdamse school style buildings so colourful was the rich use of symbols. Perhaps the easiest thing to notice was the inspiration from the nature in the structure of the buildings: flowing round forms (like a shell) or geometric forms (like a crystal). This gives the buildings a feeling of a living organism.

Then there are also sculptures full of symbolism. Sometimes they are telling the story about the building, like it’s function or it’s history. For example the Scheepvaarthuis is built in a triangular shape so that it looks a like a huge ship and there’s a lot of Indonesian style statues and sculptures to tell about the Dutch colony.

The funniest thing I saw were the pelicans in Spaandammerbuurt. One of the explanations that I found for a pelican as a symbol was that it is a sign for charity after a legend that the pelican pecks her own breast to feed her starving chicks with her own blood. Well, is this maybe something for social housing then?

– From nature to architecture and from architecture to printed matter –

[by Katje Hannula]

Een historische wandeling in een moderne stad

De excursie was een belevenis op zichzelf. De eerste keer dat ik zolang heb gefietst in Nederland en tegelijkertijd zoveel moest onthouden. Je leeft in het heden maar wordt omringd door het verleden. Gebouwen uit de negentiende eeuw of veel verder met hedendaagse bouwstijlen in hun glorie. Een vermoeiend uitstapje met interessante gebouwen zoals de Gerrit Rietveld academie die in de stijl van het modernisme is gebouwd met veel staal en glas. Het gebouw is een transparante doos terwijl je aan de achterzijde ervan massieve gebouwen ziet. De straatnamen die flitsen voorbij tijdens het rijden sommige heel duidelijke leesbaar o.a. Oost zaanstraat, Hembrug straat, Spaardammer plantsoen. Ik kan ook zien hoe de architecten mee gaan met de tijd: combinatie van oude bakstenen, glas, marmer, hout, enzovoort. Mijn hersenen proberen de tijd en de ruimte te bestuderen hoewel niet alles tot me doordringt. De hoeveelheid aan informatie is niet te verwerken. Ik wilde nog meer weten over het soort typografie, dat gebruikt werd voor de nummers van de gebouwen. De tijdschriften wendingen zijn heel uniek en hebben een heel diepe indruk achter gelaten. Ik zag ook hoe de verschillende architecten de stad tot eenheid wilde creëren ondanks de moderne gebouwen tussen de oude. Men wilde geen afbreuk doen aan de historie van de stad Het Olympische gedeelte dat alleen zichtbaar was voor me toen Henk erover vertelde. Door dit alles besef ik dat de exterieur van een stad ook aantrekkelijk wordt als je meer erover te weten komt.

[by Annemarie Daniël]

archi*-talent or archi-braveness

It really makes me wonder how is it possible that architecture differs so much every time you go somewhere . It happened to me in Amsterdam in even more intense way.
Amsterdam’s architecture for me personally is in a cartoonish style or like someone wanted to created imaginary world called “ let’s fit in here”.
I feel like there were not strict guidelines for building . People seemed to enjoy planning the city. No restrictions and open mind are definitely the keys of the

whole charm of the city.
Compare to Poland ( it was a communistic country for some time), our architecture is packed with straight lines and forms and it visibly dominates in large cities. It has a bit of sadness and harshness in a way you approach it and how you feel about it. Amsterdam posses flow of energy that comes and goes . It is a great piece of art in itself and even it is already artistic and feminine it wants to be even more chic by putting f.ex. typography on buildings, graphical images on pathways or even decorating the edges of the houses. It is all to make people’s lives here better to let the energy be felt by people living in here.

Another aspect that attracted my attention a lot is the way buildings from different styles are put together, next to each other. Are they any aesthetic limitations? Is it the way people make art – experimenting in a way, showing the contrast, behaving mad or just enjoying the weirdness of those different styles? Does it has to be clear why something stands next to other object? In my opinion and the best explanation that works for me is simply to intrigue people’s imagination, to let them feel special. What is more this way of building may not fit established rules but by not feeling “ as it should be “ it gives the reason for existence the city needs to posses. To inspire people , to disturb and to let you discover it. This is the purpose an architecture should serve to really strike your mind, excite you and wake up when you, still sleepy, go out to face the world. Just like an art.

* archi – trouble of endless movement of investigation

[by Agnieszka Zimolag]

Glass Windows

Mercatoplein is one of the Amsterdamse school constructions which developed through out and after the First World War as an architectural movement. Mercatoplein is influenced greatly influenced by Frank LLoyd Wright’s le Corbusier that was a project developing 5 years before the square was completed and is a good example of how a suburban space can be turned into a socio economical center where people gather and shop or eat.
What intrigued me most in the square was the design the of windows, because contrary to their small shape,their frequency of their repetitive pattern reminded me of simplified church stained glass windows.
Patterns were indeed found in the window design of Het Schip by Michel Klerk as the top windows of the backside opened in a shape of semi spiral form could convey to the Fibonacci theory.
Sources: studiokoning, Amsterdamse_School [Wikipedia]

[by Claire Bamplekou]