Dutch Designers With Long Names Visit NYC

You know when something is so easy for you to do, you never end up doing it? Such as exploring more of where you came from, or meeting up with someone who lives around the corner? Last week I finally got the chance to see Amsterdam based Rob van den Nieuwenhuizen (aka Drawswords) and Barbara Hennequin give a lecture at the Pratt Grad Studio.

• Almanak
• Drawswords
• Barbara Hennequin
• Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Rob and Barbara’s work is killer. Together they work at Almanac, a studio they founded in Amsterdam with a gallery downstairs and ping-pong table to boot. It kinda goes without saying that people in the Netherlands have the potential to be a pretty good designers. You’re born into a place where everything is considered and you have stunning posters decorating your daily bike ride to the office. What I love about their work and what makes it stand out to me is the sense of play, hacking and risk-taking. 

Take the book below for instance. 

Book designed and published in the aftermath of a one year AIR program. Artists Tom Tlalim (II/NL) Lieven De Boeck (BE), Frank Havermans (NL), Shinji Otani (JP) and Sachi Miyachi (JP) brought about new perspectives on the Amsterdam Zuidas area; an enormous urban project. The outcome was displayed in an exhibit; further considerations are highlighted in a publication.

Torn front (2) and back (1) covers, futhermore the first 64 pages are rainbow printed (grey-green-grey), 16 pages were printed using red and opaque ink and the book also contains 8 torn pages wrapped around different sections.All tearing was done by hand and each book is unique.

Barbara and Rob invited their friends around one night to drink beer and finish the design of the book. Which involved ripping the cover. How much does that say about clients in the Netherlands, that they’re so comfortable with designers they’re cool with the concept of destroying what they just paid for?

And don’t get me started on print techniques. Always the one to ask the inappropriate question, I asked them did anything ever go wrong. Rob said that when they were redesigning ITEMS Magazine they had to sign a contract with their printer as the combination of inks they requested had an unpredictable outcome. The color came out nowhere near what they expected, not that you or I would know.

 My favourite piece was a calendar they designed which communicated the seasons through inks. I very much had to restrain myself from stealing it. As it was for 2013 my only sadness is that if I had, nearly three months have already passed that I hadn’t gotten to love. I hope those two continue to play in their work, no doubt we’ll see it in the next Gestalten book ;)

Let me tell you a story about OFFSET 2013

Or rather, lucky attendees had a choice of forty-two of them this past weekend at the creative conference OFFSET in Dublin. A lot of conferences nowadays set out a theme or a topic to the event. At some stage (ba-dum-dum..pun) or another, we can all run out of things to say and talk about.

OFFSET – like Build (coincidentally also in Ireland) or Brooklyn Beta (coincidentally also beginning with B) has stood strong and up to it’s merit the last couple of years. Perhaps like those other conferences, what distinguishes OFFSET amongst the artboard is there are no green rooms or VIP areas. We’re all drinking the same water here, and it’s a nice bottle of Ballygowan at that.

Ciaran O’Gara of Zero-G finished up the conference with a talk on the theme of story telling, which actually felt pretty darn appropriate to the weekend. Now I know I always seem to come to some sort of conclusion or enlightenment or discovery after things, but out of a lot of the speakers and highlights, I found the theme of storytelling and humour filled each of their talks. At a democratic conference, you’re not pitching to the crowd (ahem, we’ll name no names, I feel how hard it can be up there) but more so telling people what wouldn’t make you fall asleep in your chair or get depressed over. 

Natasha Jen (seriously, lady crush, to nearly setting up a shrine level) spoke about her work, not in an “then I did this, then I did that” manner, she filled us in on having an English speaking design mind rather than Chinese (when I was in Holland I could only speak to designers in Dutch because that’s what I worked in – don’t ask me about the weather). She revealed that joining Pentagram is like joining any new place.

It may be the official designer seal of being awesome, however it still takes a while to settle and find your feet.

Her chat in the second room with Scott Burnett of Studio AAD (post coming soon on that studio, fyi) was a highlight for me.

For the past four years I have lived in a different city–actually, make that country– which has been incredible and reminded me of how little ‘stuff’ I need in my life. On the flip-side, it has left me with a feeling of flightly-ness. I’m in the habit of having to learn a lot-a lot, liking to do a million things and constantly going at 200%. This has been a contrast to how I grew up, a nerdy girl in a very small town (no I’m not from Dublin) who did her own thing because I literally had nothing else to do.

Their discussion on going with your gut and intuition (d’uh, sounds basic when you write it like that) was definitely something I took back with me to New York (because I bought a bed here so I’m definitely not leaving any time soon).

Look at this, an Irish person hi-jacking a post about a conference with her own story…. I could write a lot more about the Stone Twins causing belly aches before lunch and not from hunger but laughter, on Vaughan Oliver’s f**k-filled tangents, JR melting every heart in the room on Saturday night, Adrian Shaughnessy’s charming discussion on Herb Lubalin (more on this next week), how incredible it was meeting and talking to creative folk I have huge respect for and of course the 100 Archive (another post coming too). 

But, that’d be another story and I’m very jet-lagged. So, goodnight!

Conor & David (& Sue)

Conor & David is a studio located in and full of Dublin charm, characterised by attention to detail, sharp wit and great taste… and wait until you hear about their work. Oh, you. The guys were very kind to offer a desk and were as generous as George Clooney with their Nespresso machine recently. 

• Conor & David
• 68 Dame Street
• Dublin 2, Ireland

Let’s bask in the glow of the conoranddavid.com screenshot for a second. Conor & David came about because Conor is Conor Nolan and David is David Wall. If you attended OFFSET 2012 last April you might remember them from the main stage, especially when they announced the launch of Typegroup. Who said design is just all sitting around talking about Pantone colours, we go to conferences where type foundries are revealed live on stage! In the absence of a facility like Spaces in Dublin (although the Digital Hub assure me it’s on the way in their HQ very soon), I was lucky to finally meet these guys and even luckier get to see their lovely studio.

Down the road from Trinity College and a five minute walk from Grafton Street, inside 68 Dame Street sat the namesakes as well as type-man Bobby Tannam and recent grad Simon Sweeney. Surrounded by dudes, which was fine, except there weren’t any mirrors in the bathrooms? Where do you do your make-up? Since graduating myself, I haven’t actually spent much time in Dublin and it’s rather a novelty to be able to see first-hand what you hear abroad. Their work can be seen throughout the city and their focus to create useful and beautiful design is obvious. This October, Dubliners saw more print and web work for Open House,

“Open House Dublin is Ireland’s biggest Architecture Festival… A unique, clear, fun solution enabled attendees to get the most from the event; and assisted in bolstering the profile of both Open House and our client the Irish Architecture Foundation.”

I went to the Institute of Art, Design & Technology in Dún Laoghaire and the Savannah College of Art & Design, a decision perhaps with a different outcome if I’d seen their prospectus for the National College of Art & Design:

Who am I kidding? Peace to NCAD but I love my IADT and SCAD background, yo. Besides design work, C & D are involved with the 100 Design Archive (David is responsible for the site, hence the reason for offering my deskless-self a hand) as well as speaking in various colleges throughout Ireland and judging the ICAD Awards.

If you’re looking to add some Irish design in your life, bookmark/pin/whatever their site and follower Conor and David on Twitter.  

Two bonus favourites of their Kilkenny Light Wall and the stunning identity for the Lives of Spaces, with motion work by Paul Guinan.

Food, glorious design!

We care what it looks like - kerned! Underdone! Crude! Ahem, sorry for the Oliver Twist. Founded by Julian Roberts in 2001, Irving & Co. create absolute feasts for the eyes. Their design is so tasty I feel like licking the label and buying a jar of olives, and God do I hate olives.

• Irving & Co
• London, United Kingdom

What stood out for me about Irving & Co. was the personal approach they take. A personal relationship with foodies who have personal relationships with food has lead to some very personal design. I found this quote from Julian on The Food Bugle so relevant for clients that want to succeed. Solidifying your ethos and vision is paramount in clarifying for yourself what you believe in and what you represent, as well as for the customer.

“It’s vital that independent food producers articulate their ethos and create a visual identity that identifies them from others. The most successful food and drink brands are created by people who love what they do and work all hours in the pursuit of making the best product they can. These people invariably have a strong personality and set of beliefs which can be extracted and honed into a true and memorable visual identity.”

I thought I’d feature some of their work for Carluccio’s in particular, as I’ve already saved the entire site. Little did I know, but Julian began working with Priscilla Carluccio after leaving 20/20 and sending hand-written postcards to five clients he admired. Priscillia gave him a call and since then they have worked side by side developing the brand gradually and intelligently (no rules, no guidelines, mamma mia!). For the past ten years they’ve discovered what “ingredients” works best for Carluccios; generally Italian fonts (Bodoni with a bitta Futura), spicy colours (che bello!), stunning illustrations (Adrian Johnson, Jeff Fisher) and Alastair Hendy behind the lens to create photographs that feel like the style of contemporary Italy.

Look at all that variation, yummy or what? 

Brand New Conference

“Art is culture, and culture, well, it’s not really my friend. I think the problem with culture for me is that it provides rules and myths according to which we all repeat ourselves. If design is to be useful for business, to play a positive role in the economy, I feel it should cut all links with art.”

Miles Newlyn

Dang, that quote got me. Must admit I haven’t paid for videos before like that, but it looks like I’ll be shelling out some spondooligs for the Brand New Conference videos. A bunch of other quotes in a nice round-up on their blog. 

MailChimp: a [do what you] Love Story

Ah, MailChimp. I don’t know a designer who can think of them and not smile, unless they’re having like a really bad day, which is justifiable. Yes, ah MailChimp. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to spend a really great day in their office and my payback - besides giving them a monkey named Sue (true) - is to share their gospel.

Ah, MailChimp. I’m going to keep at that. I mentioned in a post a while back how MailChimp’s motto is, “love what you do.” This ethos runs in the veins of their products, office culture and everything you experience with them in person and read about online. I braced the intense Georgia heat, hoping my hair didn’t hit afro levels with the humidity to head to Atlanta. After getting used to the architecture of Amsterdam I’d forgotten about skyscrapers. HELL YEAH buildings can be tall.

Both the Dutch and Americans drive on the right side of the road, which is comforting. Unlike being back in Ireland, where I slightly panic each time I’m in the car now. It’s just best to ignore me when I start shouting you’re on the wrong side of the road. 

Hitting up the MailChimp HQs in the morning I met marketing manager Mark (alliteration, boom!) and creative director Ron. These guys, it’s like making pals instantly. You know the similar right-brain click, the

“dude, I know! How do we get paid to do this sort of thing, should we be having this much fun? Shh don’t tell anyone. Actually, let’s tell everyone!” And then you bump fists and little mac dock icons fly everywhere like sparkles. Too far? Too far…

I don’t even know where to start with them. For one, the office is slightly unusual. I haven’t been to many places that have a giant claw game machine filled with plush toys of their mascot (Freddie). Is that normal? Or how about a staff lounge room that is Tiki themed, with full on totem poles and bar? And the UV room, walls lined with shelves of MailChimp tshirts, stickers, monkey hats for cats?  

I thought that picture above was funny, my visitor sticker found it’s way inside an old magazine. It’s like the opening of an article suggesting I was some sort of mole for Jack Dorsey while at MailChimp. In reality I was basking in the glow of some of the most creative and inspiring people I’ve ever met, such as creative director Ron Lewis. Humble and a design machine, myself and his wonderful girlfriend Erin (who also gives a wicked tour of Atlanta and makes cycling in ridiculous heat look easy) were exclaiming that more people need to know about him. MailChimp.com redesign? May the Fourth Be With You and other witty login screens? That tiki room? Even the illustrations below of Freddie? All touched by an angel. I mean Ron. 

And then, not that I’ve met many charismatic CEOs, or any at all, either way, Ben Chestnut has set the bar incredibly high. After minutes of speaking with him I had somehow ended up telling him all my deepest, darkest and darn-right embarrassing design secrets. Whaaaat? I can’t even do him justice, better yet, just watch his Creative Mornings talk.

Thinking With Your Head and Not With Your Eyes

Damn our process is twisted, or certainly altering. I had a process epiphany last October when I took part in the AIGA’s Command X. In the handful of hours we had each day to complete a project I sobbed for about 80% of that time, drank Diet Coke/Starbucks for 15% and did some work the last 5% (does that add up? Don’t judge me, I can’t count). Oh, but what I learned about that 5%. 

With such a tight deadline to turn over a project you had to maximize the effectiveness of your time (or in my case, maximize the effectiveness of the time when you weren’t crying/worrying). What I ended up doing was researching and working out ideas in my Moleskine. And we’re not even talking sketches here, as in, like, words. [Note that’s why I said Moleskine, not sketch or notebook.] This cleared my head up and with such a brief amount of time it helped me decide in one direction to follow through with. 

This basically killed two giant eagles with one leathered stone for me because we also had to prepare to present to a couple of thousand people within those hours. As I had my reasoning and thoughts laid out on paper it meant I could refer to those instead of going blank right before thinking,

• WHY THE HELL DID I DESIGN (IF YOU COULD CALL IT DESIGN) THIS SHIT AND WHAT WILL PEOPLE TWEET ABOUT IT. 

I’m going to try and write a cooking metaphor about this, bare in mind I despise cooking and am terrible at it, however I’m working on a food-related branding project at the moment so it’s in my head. Working out your ideas on paper is like making a proper meal from scratch and cooking it on the stove, whereas something that you spat out in Illustrator from visual reference is like sticking something in the microwave that doesn’t have any substance in the long run. Where’s the good stuff? I’m not saying go Vegan (although in Scott Pilgrim being vegan did give mind powers), a bit of real veg doesn’t hurt.

But anyway, despite the stuff I did while at Command X being the most hideous eye-sores I’ve ever made (I was about to say crafted, the stuff I did is an insult to the word) I think the ideas were kind-of OK for the time frame. I believe you can make design that ticks all of your typography boxes, looks darn fashionable, or whatever, but goes rotten out of date. It’s those projects you look back on and shudder/slam your MBP lid/close your book at the sight of. BUT, a great idea never goes out of date. Despite it not looking so fresh or darn pretty you can think to yourself, alright, that was perhaps an appropriate solution.  

Of course I have absolutely no credibility on this and believe me,
I wouldn’t believe me. 

But people I’ve spoken to, worked with or read about in the last few months have made this a more solid part of my process. DJ Stout, part of the Pentagram partner posse (jesus did I just refer to Pentagram like that? Are you imagining PPP tattoos on all of them right now? Yeah… me neither.) was a breath of fresh idea air for me. In the States at the conference after party he made me feel better about being a shit designer.

You can always give your design a little more loving with time. A good idea is like bones.

Now I’m sure that’s not what he said - this was before I started writing down stuff people say and I hadn’t slept in four days - it was around the jist of that. And since we’re down the PPP route we might as well bring up a little Michael Bierut, the McDaddy of sketchbooks. Michael has shared his often, has kept them all (how many now?) and says that he is one of the last of his generation to not to move to the computer.  

I FEEL WEIRD FOR WRITING WORDS ON PAPER. 

There, I said it. Like Michael says he is the last of his kind, I’m at the other spectrum where graduates are born gripping iPads. Obviously I feel unsure of myself when I’m showing work and I don’t have three directions with seventeen variations of logos mocked up, animated and on the side of a truck. 

And yeah I don’t know if this is the right way I should be working, and yeah I think talking about how clients respond to showing work is an off-shoot of this but look, let me stew it for a while, and I’ll come back to you. Where’s my moleskine?

Everybody’s free to design nice posters. Or are they?

What is design? People much smarter and more educated than I have difficulties with that question, therefore this current headache feels slightly justified. To ease the pain, how about learning of how the likes of Studio Dumbar deal with the word and see if we get a little enlightenment. (P.S. design for your eyes included.) 

• Studio Dumbar
• Legendary design agency.
• Rotterdam, the Netherlands

This post was triggered from one not long ago about product designers Scholten & Baijings (read it here). To recap, as Dumbar state amongst their vision statements,

“Some projects don’t focus on strategy but on pure, 100% design power. Studio Dumbar calls these ‘free spirit projects’. Here, the designer has only one challenge: to see how far his or her creativity can go. Most of the assignments in this category come from organizations based in arts
and culture.”

As lightly as I touched on it in that post, Francis Smith (a designer I owe many an IOU to) was the man to ask more about it. I had planned on writing in detail on the subject, but right now I’m on a plane running on very little sleep. So lets say thanks to Dodo and Liza at Studio Dumbar for their time and generously sharing work, here’s some words on what they have to say:

“Our so called ‘Free Spirit’ Projects are cultural projects that are often partly or completely sponsored by Studio Dumbar. This way we create our own creative freedom. Naturally all this cannot be done without the support of an open minded client who understands the importance and power of creativity. 

Zeebelt Theatre was one of our first ‘design laboratories’.”

client: Zeebelt Theatre 
item: theatre programmes
design: Studio Dumbar
photographer: Lex van Pieterson
year: 1988/1989

“More recent examples are the poster series created for Pulchri Studio…”

client: Pulchri Studio
item: exhibition posters
design: Studio Dumbar
year: 2003/2004

“… the European Design Festival and Amsterdam Sinfonietta.”

client: Amsterdam Sinfonietta
item: posters for the promotion of music programmes
design: Studio Dumbar
year: 2011/2012

If you don’t know the designer Rejane Dal Bello who created the posters for the Amsterdam Sinfonietta you need to click on this link here immediately. I’m going to leave it at that (hi man in plane staring at my screen, can you read this?) and enjoy looking at some lovely design.

Love Guns (a misleading title bordering on inappropriate to a post about Young Guns and loving what you do)

Guys, I’ve seen it. It exists. And not with a massive computer system attached to the Large Hadron Collider. What all the hipsters and the scientists and your Granny have been talking about, the Higs. And it was right at the Apple Store here in Amsterdam.

• Nessim Higson (YG5)
• ADC Young Guns 
• Apple Store
• Amsterdam

Of course I’m talking about Young Gun’s alum Nessim Higson, a creative director and designer from New Orleans. Creatives rejoice, Nessim exists and shared all the best advice he never received to what seemed to be the entire Sid Lee team, Jakub Foglar, Tim Boelaars and myself. Nessim recently launched 40 Days / 40 Projects, an update to his portfolio where he reveals a project a day for 40 days. I’d been following online but hearing the story in real life (like a good pitch) and getting the full reveal made it even more memorable. 

My first time at a Young Guns talk (thanks for showing us Euros some love) and going from lovely alums that I got to know in the States (<3 Bonnie, Emily, Mikey, Dan), the YGs feels more like a club than a competition. In that manner, Nessim had a lot to share. As someone who sleeps on average five hours a night, Nessim spoke about it not being all about talent, the importance of networking and pushing yourself. From his talk I didn’t think he meant this in a ‘successful’, get up the career ladder sort of way, more in a manner of having a chance at more opportunities.

..I’m going to talk about some of the best advice I never received. The best person to push you is you… 

The brief was to make the new Spiderman feel more Batman. Unfortunately these type experiments weren’t used in the campaign, however they’re all up for viewing on Nessim project site.

I spoke to Nessim afterwards about how he keeps the quality of his work so high–from motion graphics to web design–everything was badass. This is something I often think about, working in a number of areas I’m conscious that whatever measley skills I have can dilute down, rather than being concentrated in one area. To be honest if I was focused in one area I’d probably find something to worry about too, but I was dying to hear what Nessim’s secret is. Turns out Nessim’s presentation was 80%/70% his design skills (damn, guess that has something to do with the 5hrs sleep a night). However, he believes that working with others undoubtedly makes the work even better. It’s all about balance; which he tries out by going between Creative Director (currently at Sid Lee in Amsterdam) and “to say it was work is really not fair” Designer. 

Ness ended his talk with a shot of his daughter pointing to the lines,

Love what you do. Do what you love.

I am loving how often this line is coming up lately. I can’t tell a greater story–or a story as great–as Ben Chesnut does about how MailChimp’s accidental tagline became ‘Love What You Do’. Read the love story here or go as far as downloading the colouring book.

And here it is, proof. Loving what you do can be seen as likely to greatly affect human understanding of the universe, validate the unconfirmed and be a whole lotta fun.

Post with the most amount of ‘love’ ever.

The Tandem Bike of Product Design

Daily on my bike ride to work, I narrowly miss collisions with cars when I pass Scholten & Baijings. Large glass windows are decorated with hanging fluorescent gridded tea cloths. As a designer, fluorescents and grids are two subjects I find hard to ignore.

• Scholten & Baijings 
• Westerdoksdijk 597 
• 1013 BX Amsterdam 
• www.scholtenbaijings.com

Their two floor design studio oozes a sense of cool, which seems to happen with everything in the Netherlands. Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings, are, a power-couple. That’s right, they’re one of them. They got together, stayed working together and became even more exceptional. What’s insightful to their method is they don’t divide tasks or split projects, they work like a Dutch tandem bike: totally insync.

“Stefan is really good at the big picture. I’m good at the details.” 

-Jill Singer, ‘Sight Unseen’, 02.24.10

Adding these to my list of suggestions for designer friend’s presents. The prices for their furniture and products can go up the scale, gleefully you’ll find these towels are around €24. Kaaaaching.

I noticed in a number of articles that Scholten & Baijings were often described as being distinctly “un-Dutch”. Despite ticking the boxes for being minimal and use of form, they have an industrial production style.

“What’s distinctive about Scholten & Baijings in the Netherlands? They build a bridge between designer, artisan and manufacturer. Their close involvement in the production process results in design with both a perfect finish and personal signature.”

-scholtenbaijings.com

There’s one last point about how they work that really made me think. For what I do, I’m driven by ideas and concepts. Scholten & Baijings, they start with aesthetics–colours and materials–then form a design. This triggered a memory of something I’d read about Studio Dumbar. Despite such emphasis on thinking and visual branding (visit partner Tom Dorrestijn’s site if you haven’t already), they also have ‘free spirit’ projects.

“Free spirit: Some projects don’t focus on strategy but on pure, 100% design power. Studio Dumbar calls these ‘free spirit projects’. Here, the designer has only one challenge: to see how far his or her creativity can go.” 

–Studio Dumbar

For Scholten & Baijings’ process, they say, “we work more like artists.” Which is art? Which is design? We’ll leave that discussion for another time.