Linda van Deursen, KASKlezing, 09.03.2023

[Music]

all these

expectations I I I remember the last

time when I gave a lecture in hent it

was like the worst lecture I ever gave

in my life so hopefully I can do better

today um thank you Julie for introducing

thank you gar for half introducing thank

you Thomas for inviting as well I'm

happy to see so many friends as well um

I um I was confronted with this question

what is my work actually a while ago and

I thought maybe it's the good a good

beginning for a talk um yeah I've been

working already for quite some years

maybe as a professional graphic

designer um

35 almost 40 years and when you start

thinking about what your work is you

sometimes don't even know where to begin

because there's so much um work that I

have done and I think a lot of really

bad things a lot of um insignificant

things maybe I was lucky to have the

chance to make some nice things but it's

it's really hard to talk about my work I

um I think it's also because most of my

work is in collaboration I've been

working together with um Arma Mavis for

almost more than 30 years so when you're

working with two the idea of your work

is not so easy and and then there's also

what I call inevitable work which is

work that you somehow end up doing as a

designer not necessarily because it's so

much something that you have wished for

but it's something that you end up doing

and then I also like to think of my work

as um more the things that maybe are not

so much regarded as graphic design but

that I like to think about as my work

work which is more casual things that I

do on the side and somehow even that I

may be a little bit overlooked so I was

also thinking maybe I can divide this

talk in three parts I start with early

work and then with the inevitable work

which is real hardcore graphic design I

suppose and then we end with a nice part

at least part that I like most which is

my own stuff kind of so work in

collaboration I already said that I I

already mentioned that I worked with um

our mom Mavis for a long time we just

split up so it's also a bit of something

that I have to get used to maybe that

was also the question my work my work

came up you know after we really split

up um but if I think about our early

work it always makes me um somehow happy

and I think it it's because it's so

um um it's so unprofessional in many

ways it's so so hard to look at this

work as serious work it's so unsolved in

many ways I think you know these are few

projects that I'm going to talk talk

about now like four three four books

that we made in the early '90s and at

the time what what a book was was very

hard to to it was not so clear you know

so and there was also a good thing to it

this is the first book that I want to

talk about we made it in in was an in a

project for the Yan van Academy um one

of our former teachers the Dutch

designer Yan vantor he had become the

director of the Onan and he was um he

was interested in in showing three you

know three departments Theory design and

art and he also was very politically

engaged and he was interested in debate

so he started quite soon on um um

programming interesting

debates with really interesting thinkers

if I think about the people who he

invited at the time it's actually quite

legendary but the subject of this book

was Place position presentation in

public um and they were actually three

days where three different groups of

speak speakers would come and um we we

we we had very little idea like I said

of what a book should be and um and in a

way we were we were quite opiniated at

the same same time um we made our own

images as a kind of a beginning for this

book and then in a way it kind of starts

with this I think quite uncontrolled

typography but the the kind of

typography is somehow also what makes

this book a bit attractive um the three

days have each a different paper color

so you can identify these as different

days and we used images from famous work

of Adrien Piper which is called the funk

lessons um we start with an image of the

talks and then I think what I what I was

actually trying to say with this book

too is that um we only learned how to

design through collage because at the

time the computer was not yet um

something we were able to work with it

was very expensive and no one had a

computer and we were maybe also not so

interested in the technology of it and

then um the only the only way how we

experienced graphic design as students

was by cutting and pasting I think our

work was like any other designer of that

time it was just copying and pasting

things together and when we looked and

we had a copy machine so when we looked

at some of these you know um

compositions with typography we were

like this is good we're going to repeat

this and we're going to try to remake

these compositions with real typ Setter

so we could commission typ Setters it

was part of the job was super expensive

but but somehow um our work was much

more um a bit um I don't know I think

like like I said we didn't know

computers but we were at the same time

very much influenced by computers we

kind of liked the idea of highlighting

things so it's it's it's like

aesthetically we we liked some of these

the idea of a computer but we didn't

know how to work with it so everything

else was just made by hand and really

you know quite um fast put together you

can also say that the layouts um were

all made by hand so some of them become

quite a bit rough and it all had to do

with maybe also trying to to look for

yeah good good layouts simple good

layouts but if I look at it back and

that's why I'm trying to show it it's it

looks as something that I would never be

able to make anymore because it's a bit

out of control it's much more looser

than I would make things now so

maybe that's is something to encourage

students I think you have to try to

enjoy this time as much as you can

because you will do things now that you

will never be able to make later and

this is actually maybe a very good thing

to keep in

mind I mean

look you can hardly take this quite

serious I I think it's also because you

know uh it was Yan VOR was not someone

who was quite afraid of um working with

young designers our first jobs were all

through people that we know more or less

and we got a chance to do things as

young designers and weirdly enough

whatever we proposed was taken quite

seriously so we never felt that we had

to behave in a certain way or that we

that we that the things that we were

proposing were too much so I think

without having too much confidence we

were quite supported in our in our

ideas okay second book also quite a

disaster a few years later so it was

also not that we were making books all

the time we would make maybe one book

every 3 years and then there was a big

pause and we were we were filling our

time with you know small little projects

on the side I suppose this was a book

called River rine architecture and it

was a book from 1994 so that's is that

30 years

ago

almost this is the cover silk screens

again I was describing this way of

working

earlier copying and pasting things

together like literally on the copy

machine and then make it and I think um

maybe that's why I would like to talk

about this book um this was a book um on

uh about the work of students from the

architecture Department in Rotterdam and

they had been on a kind of a journey um

on a boat along the riverine and the

idea was that they would think about um

the idea of the river in connection to

cities and so it was kind of a workshop

on a boat and when we were asked to make

a publication around this we thought

it's actually

um I mean publishing was really

expensive at the time so we thought a

full color book with work of students

that sounds almost too much so we

thought maybe we should try to make this

book as if we were on this boat too that

it's not too neat that is actually made

quite quickly and quite casual and that

is that we're not trying to glorify this

book by making it like a rich full color

book we did use the colors but every

page um of this book had like one basic

color it always had an image on the on

the bottom uh on the bottom underneath

it so there was always a color an image

and some typography there were very

different parts in this book we gave all

these different parts um more or less uh

their own um um look or design and uh if

you start looking at the book it looks

quite Messy as if every page is very

different but soon you start seeing some

um logic in how certain um contributions

were um designed like all the essays for

instance are on Yellow Page or yellow

papers if they were torn out of a a book

um all the some small contributions were

like small typed sheets but there's

always an image and often these images

were given by the editors but sometimes

these images were not even there so we

we kind of came up with these images

ourself um and here our relationship

with with the computer had Advanced a

little bit in the sense that we

sometimes use these images in the

background and we knew how to somehow

treat them so the images are um printed

out and some some sometimes we had taken

them through a Photoshop filter and then

we photocopied them again so or we

printed them out and photocopied so it's

very much again in

between um copying and

um um

pasting um preparing something for print

so I I I quite like this book as a

reference because it's maybe also

showing how we like to um use the the

the the the means that we have our at

our disposal and

um um I don't know you get quite I don't

know I just like this book because it's

so I think it's quite messy but at the

same time quite

outspoken just to give you a bit of an

idea of the book and like certainly this

image was not delivered by them but we

kind of liked it to you know to have

some sort of

liveliness uh I don't think I have so

much more to say about this book except

that I when I when I look at it I'm I'm

always quite surprised then I get to

another project which is a little bit

more serious um few years later we got

this assignment which is called the

Capen agenda and Capen was the same as

the Dutch Telecom and um Post company is

like a huge post

company in the Netherlands um and they

would publish um a calendar agenda or

what do you call a day planner once a

year and it was always quite um uh an

esteemed assignment like for us for

designers to do we were quite Young when

we got this project and um when we were

thinking about these calendars that had

been made in the past we thought they

always looked a little bit too much you

know too too rich too much overdesign

too much too much fancy materials

everything looked so good and then we

thought maybe we can take this

assignment as a kind of um a project to

do something that we find important or

maybe that could be interesting for the

people who get to see this calendar and

the size the dimensions of this thing is

was always the same it was always about

this size not very not very big that was

a given and then we got the budget which

was a lot of money for us it was like a

million gilders at the time and the

audience was also quite big like a

100,000 people or the Edition was

100,000 people 100,000 copies so it was

€1 per calendar which is a lot of money

I think so we came up with the idea to

not just make a calendar so that people

could put their notes in but to try to

make something which could be maybe kept

afterwards and maybe also something

which which could also speak about the

nature of this company in in some

way like right away we wanted to do

something with images and the the idea

how to work with images in such a format

um was not so not so not so difficult to

think

about you see that the calendar is like

very it starts at I think 7:30 in the

morning or maybe even earlier and then

it has like you can put your I mean no

one uses this anymore but you know how

it works something like this um and then

the idea is that we would have these

foldouts and on that side of this

calendar it would have like an image um

story and it would also start at 7:30 so

the image would start at 7:30 and then

other than that what you go when what

what you do when you go to work you put

all your your um your appointments there

the flip side of this book is that you

have a day off so when when you are free

you do other things so on the back side

of this calendar it said it had images

of people who were just you know

sleeping out with their kids who would

have some orange juice who would look at

the mess that they had left the night

before which is stuff that you know that

the post and telec Company would

actually

um have and then would you know

telephones and they would read letters

and it's kind of almost that when

without pointing at the service that

this telephone that this Telecom company

would do it's in it's integrated in

everyday life so you don't have to make

a special effort to show it in a fancy

way so the whole day is almost the whole

book is like uh 24-hour report of people

um not doing much hanging out and having

a day

off just um and that's and at the same

time it was also um this whole project

came to be because um we had read an

article in the newspaper which said that

photo books in the Netherlands um were

hardly um it was it was very very hard

to make a photo book and to even have it

distributed so I don't know exactly why

that was but there was also a certain

type of Photography that we liked at the

time which was more like um the opposite

of advertising in a way it was more

casual um

everyday um sort of photograph graphy

that was looking at the ordinary and

this was something that we thought would

be a good counterpart to this very well

I would say I wouldn't say

commercial uh calendar but somehow

commercial or was at least serving a

commercial goal so it starts it's like

52 Pages more or less with these images

and then it starts to become day again

this is a photo of an Afterparty by wolf

Kang tilmans and then you end up with a

couple that didn't have best night

perhaps but and then it ends again at

7:30 and if you would fold this and if

you would fold this back you know you

would get it would actually end up with

a photo book and and we thought this is

a kind of a nice opportunity to show a

huge amount of people um some sort of

form of image making and maybe um that

that we thought could be

great when what what happened in fact

was that when this

calendar um was published

all the managers from this company they

were just incredibly shocked they

thought what does this got to do with

our company so they were not very much

amused and I think most of these

calendars actually ended up in the in

the garbage because it was something

that they could not relate to and it's

also interesting because in retrospect

it was easy maybe to understand why this

actually happened because at the time

and there was a lot of companies that

well went through that transformation at

the time of the Netherlands they went

from let's say uh a company which was um

state-owned to a privatized company with

a whole different um set of um

responsibilities or

aspirations and so all the people who

had just gone through you know the

switch from it being a state company to

a private company were thinking this is

not how we like to see our company so

you could say the old ideas of ask

younger designers to be maybe to

participate in a project like this is

almost belonging to another system to a

system that completely does not exist

anymore so it was maybe also a rare

moment and maybe the last moment that

something experimental maybe like this

actually uh

happened anyway um I'm still I still

like this very much because you know uh

when we were working on this we were

very much working on this with

representatives of all these uh

different parts of the company and we

had so many interesting discussions

about um certain images that were

allowed by them and that were approved

and other ones that weren't approved so

our discussions were maybe the most

interesting of all and the fact that we

managed to M make a really um

interesting selection of images that are

not too need in the end somehow um was

also because we fought for them and we

had a really good good good

conversations always about

it you know actually this is a photo of

Nan golden it's a woman she's crying and

we and they were like we don't want to

have any crying people in our agenda and

then we were just saying yeah but this

is also maybe the reality why sometimes

people needed to have a day off because

something bad happened you know so it's

it's it's it's nothing nothing

um it's actually very much part of life

so anyway so you could say it's a

conceptual approach but it kind of

failed because of circumstances but I

still like

it um then I I I don't want to really

speak about this book so much but this

is more something that um we made in

2005 because we had the opportunity to

make something about our work we never

really we sometimes were asked to make

something but you know we were actually

quite young and somehow in the middle of

our our work at the time but we did make

a book which is based on um um a way of

looking at our work which we thought um

was something that we that that you know

maybe sometimes you have an idea as a

designer that you have that you that you

think it could be very nice to to take

your archive to pull everything out of

your archive put it on the floor and

actually start making new collages with

it this is what we did for our own work

we didn't really try to to explain

ourselves as designers maybe not the way

I'm trying to do now I'm trying to share

with you ideas that that come you know

when you make things when you respond to

certain projects or questions but this

is actually only about the surface of

graphic design which this is a poster

that we designed well you have seen the

book and this is a spread also of

something that I showed actually we were

just making new work or new images with

our old work and everything was also

analog so it was still a Time time maybe

when when um everything that we thought

was graphic design was a materialized

object it was a material a materialized

sheet of paper um with colors printed on

it and bound and you

know and it was so nice to do this um

also because there's no hidden meaning

or no no special idea it's just that

somehow we look at the surface of our

work and this surface also shows all the

things that went through our hands and

maybe the things that we have worked for

and then this was

printed um with some texts uh interviews

by Paul Elman who was a friend at the

time and he interviewed us about our

clients which was also um um very honest

because he's a friend who at the time

maybe went through the same kind of

problems with his clients so we really

spoke like how you talk in a are about

your clients and you can probably

imagine what kind of a a talk that is

it's always gossiping and complaining

and you know this is sort of a way how

you talk to to to friends about your

work and this was um a difficult and but

what he did he just transcribed

everything literally you know so even he

made things even worse by adding his own

experience in it so later we were we

were kind of happy to you know to show

our friends and our clients this book

but they then they started reading what

was in it so it was also they were not

so happy but you know we also thought

it's okay they know how we think about

them so you know but but I think at the

time it was quite um um a bad thing

anyway yeah you know it's a bit like

shooting yourself in the foot and and

sometimes it's it's

um I think I think both and our M both

Armand and I have been um

very let's say not calculated in how we

how we were perceived by people we never

tried to make ourselves better than we

were we never tried to give people an

impression that was bigger than you know

I think it was maybe the other way

around I think we were even doing the

opposite like I said um trying to to

damage our work even or to to not to be

visible or to be unfair found or you

know anyway maybe that's also not a bad

idea to think about when you're a

student now it's kind of nice to maybe

you know be un

invisible maybe that's the best

position okay this is the serious part

of my talk um which I I like I already

introduced it it's it's called The

Inevitable work which you somehow end up

doing and um there's a lot of identities

and some exhibitions and maybe some

Publications but it's kind of nice to

find out that identities are huge

projects especially when they come into

a studio of two people and there's like

a huge responsibility with an enormous

amount of different types of works that

is often really about how to handle all

this work and how to organize that type

of work but also when you do an identity

um it looks always quite serious but

it's actually maybe one of the few

moments where you are very free in how

you how you approach a project because

there's no one who says I want to be

this it's more that we

say we think you should be this it's and

and what this is is actually incredibly

free one of the first identities we made

was for Museum Boons from bingan in

Rotterdam it's an Museum which is very

um um complete it has like started

medieval paintings and sculptures and it

goes to Contemporary Art so it's it has

a full range of the whole spectrum of

what you find can find in a museum and

the collection is made by these two

people it's based on these two people

whose last name starts with a B from

burning and and boont and even when we

got the assignment and we were in the

elevator going down this idea came up

already and so this is how you know

sometimes you have these things that pop

in your head and it's almost too

childish and you don't you don't dare to

say it out loud but it works it's

somehow something that can be as simple

and sometimes it can be as effectful so

we were just thinking the be as one line

and an outline B which together become

this

identity like I already mentioned um and

it could and so in order to really make

this we only we only had one example of

a type phase from Wyman that he had made

together with um other designers for the

Mexico Olympics in

1968 which is a bad reference for a

museum um because it's a sport event and

you know how to turn

something um which is conceptually

interesting also how to make that

formally work and I think that was

something which is you know how to make

it work is maybe one one of the most

important things and

uh at that time we were of course

looking at the type face and it was a

beautiful type face but we wanted to get

away from it we also thought maybe there

shouldn't be one thickness maybe there

should be different types of

thicknesses the fact that you could

actually um separate the inner line from

the outer line was already something new

and then we asked radin Pesco who was a

very good type designer to specifically

draw a new font for this Museum in very

different ways I don't want to go get

too much in it but um um I also don't

want to show so much about these

identities but I will always try to show

one one of these things that I like you

know that we did for this Museum one of

the things that I really like was always

that we had these planks

standing in the entrance hall but also

at different points in the museum

because the entrance Halls entrance hall

was a newly built Space by two um

Belgian Architects Rober and

D but they were they were they didn't

want anything to be touched or attached

to the walls and so we only could come

up with this leaning leaning plates but

I always felt this was such a good

element because all these temporary

exhibitions somehow were identified with

a leaning thing and then you could just

take it away and you know paint it over

or put something new on it this is

actually one of the the nice Parts I was

like this this this device I only have

bad photos of it but anyway we were

kicked out of the museum after 2 years

and now they still somehow use this

identity but it's brought back entirely

to this Mexico Olympics which which we

always thought was a bit of a a bad

starting point anyway um this is a a

small smaller project but also a lot of

work um it's the fourth International

International architecture by Anyan to

them and the whole theme of the biannual

was open City designing coexistence

coexistence um um it was a very

interesting

subject it was about themes that would

threat the idea of the Open City and

um um our job was to kind of organize

this

messy um crazy busy

um project where many Architects were

involved with and we we started working

with the with all the students from the

at the time we just had to be clever

with some ideas um one thing that I like

about this exhibition and I don't know

exactly why it was but it it's always

held in the Nea Institute in in

Rotterdam and there's a huge main

exhibition space and the architect who

came up with the design for this um

exhib exibition for some reason he came

up with um a setting which was very much

uh a setting of the office so Office

tables carpet great carpet as you see

and sort of these gray chairs and we

were like hang on it's about the Open

City and why would you come up with this

um sort of gray default office

furniture and then we we had immediately

the response maybe we should treat it as

outside space so I I think this sort of

immediate ideas worked out really well

to like we just spray on it as if it's a

graffiti outside so I don't know I like

I like the idea that the spraying on the

carpet is something that you could

probably not so easily do anywhere but

it it gives the space and a good

identity the same is a bit with these

lights that we have here um we kind of

like the idea of this regular you know

office light that somehow could also

become signs in the city so everything

is a little bit um it's almost like

office materials and office stuff that

is somehow that is becoming um all of a

sudden outside or speaks about the

outside or speaks about the exterior

rather than the

interior this is a type phase and also

that we developed with

Carro um and we also use this then maybe

like we we we came back to this type

phase many times we used it even for um

a whole identity of a museum in Chicago

but it's kind of nice that some ideas um

start somewhere you know like quite

casual in one project and they end up

like like they have like a whole life of

their own so it's always maybe nice that

um things that you have to make quick or

some things that kind of um are not too

overthought all of a sudden end up maybe

in another project

anyway this is the opening but one of

the things that that ended up as another

project was also um this outside um

signage like the sign on the building

because we just thought it would be nice

to put that the word open really big and

then later when um the Nia Institute

became the N Institute on this space in

the same space we actually used it again

or we were asked to reapply this idea of

typography which is then new and new so

I I think it's also quite nice that this

idea was somehow recycled

again okay the temporary stay look at

the stay look am I going too slow is it

okay okay I can also speed it up a bit

you know like let me know if you if if

you can also do this sometimes then I

know that I have to be a bit quicker I

think I'm more or less halfway he's like

okay you can do this h

okay the temporary St at the St um well

um well you know um we live in Amsterdam

and

um the state was a very important place

for us you know and when we were

students um when we when we became

professionals it it was an important

place in many ways um and at one point

and it was not only an important place

for us to see uh interesting exibitions

but it was also a place that had an

incredibly Rich history in terms of

graphic design because you know people

like Willam sunber who was a director of

the state look also made um incredible

um graphic designs very very um let's

say not the way we think about graphic

design now he would make graphic design

um when he had boring meetings he would

you know design posters and the posters

were often instructions for the printer

because he knew exactly the type faces

that the printer had he knew the sizes

of them so it's a very different way of

making things he would make small

Publications for the state look which

were very lowbudget printed at the time

because it was very very expensive to

produce things very modest materials

which was important you know as a

historic reference after that um came

Vim Crowell who had like a whole

different vision of graphic design and

also um was able to to to make quite um

to use the state look to show these new

ideas on graphic design he got big

critic critique for that at the time but

anyway whatever happened at the state

look and especially the graphic design

was always quite um it belonged to that

time and it was a very important um

expression of that

time and so the stalic had been um

wanting to have a new identity it had

set up a competition which was a mess we

even took part in it but I mean I don't

want to speak about this too much but

there's documentaries made about it and

they're not very much fun to look at but

if you're a student you might want to do

it um at one point and and Goldstein

became the director of the St she's a

curator from the US she um she had been

working in La as curator for a long time

and she was very precise and very

interesting person she she um she

understood when she was appointed um

that St had been closed actually for a

long time because it was being renovated

and it was a whole new extension being

built and the people in Amsterdam were

actually becoming really impatient

because there was what they would call

in a very dramatic way there were

generations of students and people and

their kids who had never been to the

museum so there was a lot of tension

around this reop opening of this place

at the time when um the old building was

renovated the new part was far from

ready she said I want to make an

exhibition in that museum right now when

it's empty and she made one of the most

beautiful exhibitions at the stook maybe

the best since it opened and this is

called the temporary St at the stale

Museum in Amsterdam she she basically

wanted to show the old building being

renovated and when you were kind of

looking through the building you would

think ah it's kind of an empty show

there's nothing here so all the works

were incredibly subtle works there would

be pieces of polished floors that would

be beautiful um like sound pieces um

everything looked quite empty and very

very um yeah invisible very immaterial

exhibition too so she asked us to make a

an identity and so we came up with this

idea of the tea immediately as a sort of

a sign which you can you know it's a

straight line and it's it's a vertical

and it's a horizontal line and it forms

a t we even went to Carl Martin's Place

to roll this you know with a ink roller

because we thought the gesture of

rolling this is maybe even the most

important thing you mark you mark the

horizontal and the vertical

space and since it was also an

exhibition um which was just a temporary

identity we thought it would be nice to

um to use up all the things that the St

still had so they had still old

stationer and old um envelopes and we

just used them and printed the tea over

it which was kind of a nice way of

cleaning up you know stacks of old stuff

uh and that's kind of te more or less

worked on

everything um we introduced kind of the

basic colors that we thought belonged

very much to the modernist you know

origin of the state

um we liked the idea of over printing

that all it's I

mean in a way it's quite uh an effectful

and very simple identity we we didn't

force it we also hadn't we didn't have

much time to make it and so we also

wanted of course to paint Big T's on the

windows but then this of marshel broter

um Sol ofit work was installed so we

kind of couldn't use the windows and

then we made these flags I mean

even the the website was very very

modest and very fastly made but

everything this gesture of the tea

somehow worked for it

purpose after that um actually one or

two years later uh this was more like a

trial she said I liked what you did and

now I want you to make also the identity

of the new stale Museum and then it's

almost like we were very happy with this

um with this project with the tea and

then we were like oh no what do we do

now how how do you how do you make again

an identity or how can you make a second

something which is interesting again and

then we came up with this kind of I

don't know I don't even I don't even

think it's a

beautiful uh logo but it worked you know

we were kind of you know how you how you

draw and you try out things and we

thought the kind of simpleness the

Simplicity of a small sign which is an s

in this case could work and it's almost

um yeah a little bit embarrassing to to

maybe um propose it but we had no better

idea and we thought maybe maybe the sign

in itself is not the most important

thing but it it can work in a

constellation of elements and in our way

in our view the s in itself was not so

important but we were more interested

the idea of these three work words being

somehow um work words words that also

identify this a field a bit like the T

identifies a space we thought everything

what is in the museum or what you call

the museum is something that we agree on

we agree on that this is the space that

we call the museum and that all the

works that you know that are here we

call them artworks so the fact that this

is you know like a Marc this was more

important to

us and in a way these bits that you can

that you that can be smaller and bigger

and you know different configurations

these these strips they became really

important for elements such as the

identity you could say it's always the

same type phase and it's always placed

more or less on the same on the same um

height but you could fold these as

little strips around the wall or they

can become you know little strips as

sign it so um we also try to whenever

there's an idea for um

typography um that this somehow needs to

be carried out in everything we do and

this is a bit of game or like you know

like a condition for making maybe even

an identity to try to something that

holds together from the smallest thing

to the biggest

thing um this was actually quite nicely

made like I said also at the beginning

we couldn't do anything like this you

know but we had to find people to

produce interesting materials who could

make the who could make everything how

how to attach this even to the wall so

this was all highly specialized

collaborations with with people that we

kind of

slowly discovered and I don't know it

was it was actually quite nice as well

to work with all these people you see

that they come back here and there also

this type face is used used um for

posters to introduce exhibitions for

credits we always made these huge

posters which had the type pH in one

type size only capital letters every

time new compositions new kinds of um

configurations but that's just very very

much based on rules

everything and also in a way that if we

would go um someone else could actually

based on these rules make make this

I mean these are not even so interesting

but it's something that was set up more

more or less this is a bag that was made

by clar marttin she's a textile designer

um she made like a really great bag

which is kind of stitched here so that

you know the sides are again the the the

bags or the the sides are again

emphasized same with the plastic bag it

looks all very simple but was quite a

big idea to not print in the middle but

on the sides you know so and then she

also made a really nice ribbon it's

actually framed that everyone who's

volunteer in the museum could hang or

use around their body in the way he or

she wanted so it's kind of a a frame as

a as a way to

identify uh

volunteers Small Things

endlessly um I don't know I don't I

don't want to say too much about it just

just to give you a bit of an idea of um

yeah you make things for the development

department for the education department

for the restaurant you have to make um

actually um four books um in two

languages each and so it it's like an

avalanche that you just have to

handle but um even you know and I think

we we're both a bit like this that even

when we finally have you know some some

some clear idea of what this identity is

um you just try to make it work and and

also in this case I remember that we had

friends from the US out students helping

us out but everything these layouts were

all systemized in the sense that the

distances between them would help people

make layouts and I don't know I don't

think I want to go too much in the

details but it's it's very much about um

yeah trying to trying to make something

which which can be done in a very short

amount of time I also was in involved

with this little book it was a project

by the education department and was

actually quite bad but I liked the idea

that it was a way to um to to look into

the archives of the stck and to try to

tell the history of the state through

images um from the 100 Years of its

existence and um I very much liked to

edit these and you know to try to um to

make a sort of an image story which

which was also a way of making up for

the Lost Years like this is the story of

the museum again you know and yeah

okayo the last

project um in this kind of serious part

is a oh there's a spelling mistake as

well here a collaboration with Arman

Linker uh yeah sorry um I I I have been

working with this uh with the photog

photographer um Arman Linker since

2015 I I ran into him in an opening in

Rotterdam and um um I think there was

always an idea of um doing something

together but we never really um it never

really happened it took about 5 years

before we actually really did something

together and since then um I haven't

stopped working for him so it's it's

kind of interesting that um I think of

myself as an independent designer but

I've been working for someone over over

for seven years almost on a daily basis

so it's kind of interesting that slowly

you become part of other entity and

Arman is someone who likes the idea of

working as a collective so he has like a

lot of collaborators and he's quite

someone with a with a big um capacity

for setting up really large

projects um are I I I don't I I'm not

even the only designer that he works

with so just to give you yeah it's it's

um but I just want to mention this

because I think he's an incredibly um

inspiring person who's quite Fearless in

how he works and how he um how he's able

to um to include people um and how to um

yeah

have how to also make the work um like a

joint venture rather than um I don't

know I don't know how to describe it

better where is

Andrea hey so actually Andrea could be

able could be able to say more about

this project but um this was one of the

last things that we did it was a huge

exhibition that took place in Mata which

is in the middle of um um the south of

Italy um it's a beautiful Old City City

uh where people till the 60s even lived

in caves very beautiful and um it was

capital city of Europe at the time and

so Armen was already years before um

asked to make an exhibition about his

work in certain locations in Mata and he

always liked this the old school which

had been abandoned for maybe 20 years

maybe longer so it was a school that was

abandoned so this was one of the

locations where he

well I didn't even tell you that he's a

photographer and a filmmaker and who's

also someone who both Works in in in for

commissioned work but also um

self-initiated work

so M more or less his work is an ongoing

practice of making images and producing

them and keeping them as an archive by

the time uh this exhibition was made he

had 600,000 photographs in his archive

and I think all of them are actually

really good photos it's it's kind of

something that's hard to imagine and

then there's also this enormous urge to

make

films um so there was one part is like

an exhibition of his Works um in the in

the school and so you also see these

typographical sheets in between so

there's always um every image that is in

this show is also the picked it on one

of these sheets and there's always like

a caption with it so everything is

always double so the work that we do as

graphic designers um in this particular

case was very much um um trying to give

Armen and his team instruments to set up

this exhibition and everything was as

much a paper exhibition on printed

sheets in black and white as it was like

you know an exhibition as a film or as

photographs and this whole exhibition

this paper exhibition could be assembled

and you could actually if you would want

to you know um re show this exhibition

you could see it in a very very modest

form well it's it's it's a bit

complicated to explain but this

exhibition goes to um from the school to

the Courtyard into the Depo of the

Museum of ethnography or archaeology and

so actually he was able to enter the

archives and the of the the depot of the

ethnographical museum and he was his

Works Were Somehow in dialogue with

things that that were there it was

actually really beautifully done because

it was all um covered by glass panels on

which photos were hang and then there

was the very last part of the exhibition

which was office space that they emptied

out with what Armen calls like the

footnotes of a huge film projection that

was also there anyway it's quite I mean

it's maybe not so much about the end

result but it's maybe more about how

to how to how to maybe um give Armen

some sort of tools that work for him

that work for him um you know that work

within his interest of archiving and of

um you know pulling things of out of the

archive with the help of um Andrea we

made these two huge um how do you call

it folders which like I said is the

whole exhibition printed out the signage

all the captions all the introductions

all the introduction texts in two

languages crazy but actually so this is

basically it's basically a PDF that you

can print out and then you also have

something material but and you can also

as a material thing you can remake this

exhibition if you want so it's it's kind

of nice to try to think about how um how

this also functions within his work this

this what we

did okay over the last

part um casual and overlooked

work you sometimes think when you do

this work that you are always working

for someone else and that you always

have to be ready for someone else which

is which is sometimes a bit of a tiring

thought you know and so um one of my

casual and overlooked work is definitely

teaching it's something that I have done

almost my entire um professional life

but I never think about it as work I

always think about it as something that

maybe um makes my graphic design work

interesting because um it allows me to

talk about all the things in graphic

design that I have no um access to um

when speaking to a client for instance

or while doing just regular graphic

design work all the things that interest

me in graphic design end up somehow in

teaching as subjects or in conversations

with students I don't know maybe this is

a project that I can speak about at some

other time one

day and I also have some personal

interests apart from um you know doing

the jobs that I do I'm also very much

someone who is probably from early on

also like you all a consumer of graphic

design and a consumer of um Printed

Matter a consumer of images and so I

always have

been um interested in you know looking

at images and looking at what they mean

or trying to make make something out of

that you know um and so Julie was

introducing me but um when Julie started

when she said that was making she was

going to make an image uh like a

magazine just about images I was like oh

maybe I can do something for that or I

don't even remember how this happened

but you know sometimes I find an image

like this which is um f fashion shoot in

front of the brunenberg tour which was

just after second world war and you can

see how damaged this building is

nevertheless there's a photo shoot

taking place just you know and then i'

and then maybe one or two years later I

come across this image of a a woman

called eel

gabain and she is commissioned to draw

um um the remains of the bombing and

even the clearing out of the bombing in

East in East London during the second

world war which is I think 1941 but also

the fact that she is dressed so smart

and this was probably how women were

dressed anyway you know at the time

but I thought ah you know when you start

thinking about this relationship of um

the dressing up and the kind of the

beauty of being well dressed in relation

to um

maybe um places that are in Ruins or um

the kind of friction between those two I

always kept a folder in my in my uh on

my desktop which was always about you

know fashion and ruins and then I also

started noticing that a lot of big

fashion companies um started um buying

up um ruins as if they are real estate

or like you know buying the Coliseum or

owning all of a sudden The Palazo this

Cil um this huge uh what is it fascist

Palace which is bought by fendy and

restored by fendy so there's so many

interesting relationships going on so I

thought maybe I can make make a

contribution for Julie's magazine just

about this subject and so it's just you

know always a little bit of a timeline

and I try to be um open in the images

that that I choose maybe there always

needs to be a bit of a wide range I like

the idea of printing white over them to

connect them because some of these

images to me belong to one another but

it's also maybe a bit the idea of the

chalk the dust that is um ending up on

these images it's just a collection of

images that hopefully maybe say

something about this relationship or

this ongoing relationship of um the

immaculate and the and the Decay and

this endless repetition of

this sometimes there's also an image

that doesn't really belong there but it

looks good it's you know it's also kind

of okay to be a little bit loose with

with that kind

of and the second contribution was made

um um in a similar way it was also

something that interested me um that the

oldest prints the oldest stencils by

hands were discovered in a cave in

Borneo um and I was thinking that's

amazing this is the first image of a

cave of thousand year old um image you

know and then and then at the same time

you see body parts that are being um

printed

or yeah and I and then I was like of

course maybe this is one of the most

important images it's always fascinated

me this image of Man Ray where um mer

Merit um Meritt oppenheim who's a really

great artist herself is standing there

with the printing press with a hand full

with ink and you're like what does this

image mean is she is this is she ready

to make stencil with her hand or is

she um and this is this mechanized idea

of printing how does that relate it's a

kind of a puzzle that doesn't cannot be

solved and then there's also some really

complicated images of this British

photographer called Terry Richardson who

is making images for a pelli calendar

but I I think the the female body and

how it's being used by themselves or by

others as printed objects is also Al a

sort of um an ongoing a narrative in in

in um that has ever since the beginning

of Photography more or less

appeared um so I liked again to make

this collection of women in printing

situations um and then I I I kind of um

went to the dark room and made these

photograms with my hand was also a bit

of an oldfashioned way of but I liked

the gesture of

this I don't think I'm I'm I'm so um

it's such an important thing for me to

do but I I very much I think I feel like

I'm a beginner when I'm making these

kind of contributions but I really I

really enjoy the

work I also made a contribution about

um um women and printed um clothes or

let's say news Sprint on clothes this

was for a for

contribution for um a book by the

experimental Jet Set um a graphic design

collective in the Netherlands who made

um a publication around um the idea of

kiosks in public space and they asked

several people to make footnotes for

this text and when I was reading this

text I noticed that there was not one

women one woman um mentioned in in the

Hall of History of these kiosks in the

street and I was thinking this is so

hard to believe there's so many women

who carry around the news and who behave

as kiosk or you could even look at them

you know as a as a as a kiosk so this is

just a study in um women on the street

um serving news or bringing the news or

being depicted as a female character

with in the news setting

um I don't know I just thought it's kind

of a good a good way to counterbalance

maybe what is lacking a little bit in

there okay and then this the last

project I want to talk about it's not

it's really the last one and um I made a

book for a friend called Nigel sheffron

he's a British photographer and the book

is called the well and it shows his

commercial

work um Nigel um chef is actually quite

a good a good photographer and he likes

his work to be known for his modest um

photos which are very much um photos of

his domestic life his girlfriend on the

phone his kid um the the dishes that

they do and all of these photos are

really they have they have quite um I

mean they're quite outspoken and very

modest and very beautiful

um but at the same time he sometimes um

works as a commissioned photographer

weirdly enough as a fashion photographer

and he kind of likes this to be somehow

a secret he just doesn't like the idea

of um of him being known as a fashion

photographer and I was working on a

publication with him and I remember that

he came with a photo shoot that he had

just done and I was looking at these

images and I was like wow your fashion

images are amazing and he was like no no

no no and I and I said I want to make a

book about your fashion work and he was

like Over My Dead Body because I don't

want to be known for my work as a

fashion photographer and it took me like

three years to convince him to try to

really make this book and I don't think

it was that easy to convince him in the

end because what actually made this book

nice and interesting is that all his

life from the very beginning when he

started walking around with a

camera he had been making photos of um

of people who were shopping of um of

shops of shopping windows so he's not

someone who hasn't been looking at the

act of shopping you could say that his

fashioned photos his commissioned work

is actually only part of that whole

change of how um the high end of fashion

ends up in magazines but the end in the

end it ends up like a poor image of you

know a sale somewhere in the Streets of

London and it says everything must go so

I think I was able to convince him of

the fact that the book should not be

just the beautiful pictures that he

makes but it should be his view in the

entire spectrum of um him looking at

consumption so the book is a kind of

combination of you know some photos that

he made like like I said everything must

go but it also shows because it's it's

also 30 years of his work it really

shows how the act of shopping and the

places of shopping has changed so it

became an really interesting document

and also his role has changed in this so

this is how he started out when he was a

super young kid he just you know um he

was in living in England

and there were um these new magazines

that started to appear like idea and the

face and these magazines would not just

look at highend Fashion but they would

look at street wear or he would just go

with a friend who was a stylist with a

bag full with fake Lou Louis Vuitton um

things and they would just photograph

people that they liked on bicycles or in

the laundr to just you know it was like

really impulsive and very casually made

I think this was made in the early

80s but it could have been made

yesterday you know anyway fake Louis

Vuitton still

exist this was also interesting he was

at one point he was in is that Belfast

and at the time it also had these um um

conflicts between the Protestant and the

Catholic so there was every now and then

also bombings and one of his one of when

he happened to be there they were all

putting new windows in because all the

bombing had just you know damaged all

the shopping windows so I kind of like

that these small stories inserts also

happen to be in that book then he made

these stories where where he and a

friend would want to try to make um a

story about science fiction and uh Urban

science fiction and they would just

every every day they went out and shot

shot new images

so it was also a way of um not being

even commissioned as a fashion

photographer at the time at the very

early beginning but just working um at

at as a fashion photographer and um um

yeah it was not so professionalized you

know it was just everyone could just con

you know submit their contribution and

sometimes you were published and

sometimes you weren't so it was also no

one had anything to lose you know in the

80s no one had any money no one it was

just you just you you had energy and you

you started working and then you would

just you would just um produce work same

with this a friend that they just who

who he who was actually quite a a

well-known model but she and him just

had some bunch of t-shirts and went out

to shoot this anyway all I want to say

is that 30 years of work and slow change

of how

Commerce and fashion and the idea of

fashion and how it's being portrayed

somehow um uh ends up in this book This

was um Pro probably in the early '90s

somewhere this is famous series that he

had made which none of these people are

professionals but he just these are kids

hanging around in a shopping center and

he just photographed them but they could

have been a fashion photo or they are

maybe fashionable because they look and

it's maybe more youth that we find

interesting than than fashion to begin

with and then he for a while he also

made some portraits of quite iconic

figures also for instance many of the

photos that that are in this book were

not really published because at the time

he just he I mean he he was

photographing this person called Faith

Evans and all these people were standing

around her and they wanted to be

photographed with him so he he said okay

with her I mean so he just made this

picture but never really thought about

it but in retrospect these become

interesting photos also Linda

Evangelista was a fashion model famous

model with her school friends in Canada

I don't know everything what Nigel does

makes it actually quite ordinary or he

tries to also maybe undo fashion a

bit um Young girls being

scouted this was the the story that I

really liked at the time when I start

first thinking about this book is that

he had been going to Avenue Mont which

is the fancy Street in Paris where all

the big shops are and his idea was that

young women would perform the act of

shopping in in the

store so you know the bag transaction

check writing out the check so I thought

this is such a great idea for a fashion

shoot and it's also in a Way documentary

but it's staged so I think there's a lot

of a lot of really great ideas and then

Nigel slowly became the photographer who

started working made his way back into

high-end fashion and started working for

fog us and then he made the most crazy I

would say quite extreme photos in that

context I really like this photo

um but again so again you know one of

his shoots he didn't make anything new

for this book only the very few last

pictures this is also typical Nigel he's

in Paris and he see these workers you

know taking a little break but he copies

this exactly then with people dressed in

what was it again probably Seline or

anyway and this is

Nigel doing a photo shoot with uh gig

hadit but I think he also creates

awareness or that we understand what

we're looking at and the models are

never really um shown as a sexual object

but they're shown as young women who

have energy and they are alive and

they're playing in his little game you

know so they become much more um actors

in the sets that he creates and I think

this is a very different way of um of

making maybe approaching fashion

photography even silly photos like this

you know and this is one of my favorite

photos it's Bella hadit dressed up as

um as a gas pump and if you're talking

about fashion this bag that she's

wearing here is probably cost maybe

€3,000 or something or

$3,000 but it's just yeah it's um it's a

funny thing that he had made when he was

when he went to dress up party but I

think that he's able to to to kind of um

insert these types of images in these um

fashion magazines I think is quite

extraordinary to me they all you know

they're really also sort of a critique

about shopping and about fashion so

that's why I thought it was so good to

try to make this

book this is the only shooting the the

only images that he made specially for

the book where he asked young girls to

actually pose or to imitate the pose of

something which is you know apparently

in the

street and this is the credits which of

course need to be done and then of

course we had a long a long talk about

how to make a cover and um in the end it

was just this is it you know this is

actually he made this cover in the 80s

um for a French magazine that doesn't

exist anymore but I I like the idea of

spraying everything away so that it's

only you kind of get rid of the context

but you only see um the image and that's

a bit the idea of the

book that's it

[Applause]

thank you very much that was a warm

Applause

C questions yeah did I was it long was

it

okay really okay not too slow not too

like if you have questions yeah

fine maybe I will uh ah you have a

question I was wondering if I see the

last book you showed yeah very clear you

have a specific idea what you want to do

and what you want to make but then if I

look to to some other uh projects it's

not only very strong idea but it's also

a bit of a very

uh political idea I would say or very

strong opinion that you have certain

things like in the

CN agenda that you want to show this uh

Leisure um a day off the day off

yeah the the gossiping that you show so

like there is a very strong sense of of

agency I was wondering if you can maybe

say something about you as

a political person and a graphic design

or something like

this I don't know I mean I don't I don't

even see myself so much as a political

person um but maybe um maybe every

project in a way starts with trying to

see the project like what the hell is

going on here what is actually being

asked of us or what is what how does

this object function where where does it

exist and um is it an interesting is it

is it something that I want to

participate on in and often the answer

is no I'm always thinking this is

horrible you know I don't want to make

this day planner or this calendar I mean

I was thinking this is an uninteresting

assignment or it's really um not an

interesting

question and as soon as you have that uh

as a kind of a let's say a conclusion

you can ask yourself

but then what does make it interesting

or where is the potential within this

assignment and maybe the one way to to

kind of keep working as a designer is to

somehow um create your own problem

within the assignment that you get like

what do I want to do for this project

and this is and if you can think I would

like to make a photo book you know as a

calendar so that people actually maybe

see different images or maybe it's a

certain type of image that is so

unlikely of the commercial images that

normally you know are produced by the

company but just so that you see how

this work but the kpn agenda ends up in

regular households and which is much

more interesting for me if you think

about it as advertising than creating

you know fake

worlds so I think I don't know I don't

think it's necessarily so political but

it's maybe

um just hoping that you can open up a

space a bit to something else and maybe

it also has to do with how we were how

we grew up you know as designers or how

we we also went to art school like you

are here and in a way um graphic design

at the time I think when we when we were

taught graph design it was also um um it

was

um not necessarily being neat and

behaving like you're supposed to we it

was okay to ask questions or to look for

space

and and it becomes more difficult you

know to find spaces and to see the

spaces but as long as that's possible I

like to do graphic design or and I even

think it's a more interesting

platform um than maybe being an artist

because I also think it was always the

struggle should be become do I want to

become an artist or an applied artist

and I think maybe it's more difficult to

be an applight artist and maybe it's

also kind of interesting like to look at

people like Nigel who are who is also an

apped artist but really finds space on

these gigantic platforms that fashion

magazines are to say other things about

women than what you normally see so I

just think if you look hard or if you

keep looking I think there's space for

things and maybe people don't fully

understand or don't understand the scope

maybe we don't even fully understand or

I don't but you hope that maybe you can

do something which is um worth

doing and I don't know if it's political

maybe it's critical maybe it's playful

maybe it's trying to escape the obvious

you know all of these things could also

be maybe key wordss it's nice to call it

because it sounds good but you know

maybe it's a bit too much to call it

political I

think anyone

else has your work ever come back to for

example you like barch into a room and

find out that your calendar was hanging

up what that the calendar was what that

your calendar was hanging up and inside

the the house or maybe like some artist

was scribbled a bit on your one of your

designs and she made recogize

story um not so much because usually

these

things they don't have such a long life

I mean some Publications do but um the

way you describe it now I I think I

think you know to to be to find one of

these day calendars now and there was

like I said 100,000 were made I don't

think you can find one of them anymore I

think they're all gone you know

so um sometimes

um no I don't think so it's just it just

it's ephemeral it's stuff that has a

certain time lifespan and then the

message is old

so maybe books but even the books that

we made I don't think they have such a

long

life I

mean the more the more the more

experimental they are the the more

harder it is for them to last you know I

think as sometimes go to the sler or do

you have this here and then I'm like oh

no you see always like some of your

works is is you find it in the SL and

you're bit like that was a bad book I

wish I wish it would vanish from the you

know the surface of the Earth but that's

also the other way I think it's more the

other way around I I you know when you

when you think about like how I started

this lecture what is my work I'd like to

pick out the examples that excite me and

that then people think like oh that's

cool and interesting but there's so many

works that we made that are really you

know not so great or I would I'm kind of

ashamed about them maybe or they're not

so successful or we like like or we

didn't know how to handle form so

they're clumsy and they look bad

nowadays so it's maybe more the other

way around that I see a lot of bad

things which I'd rather not Bruno uh

want because you said it kind of know

quite

um kind of openly that you like look

back and then like some things and you

don't like some things but do you notice

this while you're doing them or do you

love everything while you're doing it or

kind of do you already know do you like

while you're doing it do you already

like suspect you might not like this or

kind

[Music]

of well you know when I made this cover

I thought this is going to be a good

cover it took me a long time to make it

but like this is going to be a good

cover I'm not I'm not worried about it

and I think I'm going to like this cover

in 10 years or 50 years time

too but um I think what is maybe

sometimes disappointing is that um and

this is maybe something which is harder

to um identify but I think we're often

or maybe me I'm sometimes really in the

moment thinking about um maybe a certain

form of graphic design that is maybe hip

or trendy and then I can't you know then

I think I want to be part of that or I

want to use this and I think always in

retrospect those turn out to be the bad

decisions you know and then you're like

you're so excited at the at the moment

that you are in tune with your time and

that you think like um it's also maybe

saying I understand what is going on at

the moment but then later those are the

weak projects in a way I found out that

um all the projects that that still um

hold up are somehow harder to grasp or

they are um like I said the very early

ones because they're clumsy and they

don't compare to anything so

much um but I think there certain I

don't

know a bit a bit of a distance works

better weirdly enough a bit of a cooler

approach I have experienced

that and I mean we made like like we did

everything we never said no to anything

so we made flyers for parties we made

invitations for bad galleries I mean we

made covers for magazines that are not

so important and then maybe you can say

of all the magazines covers that we made

maybe one or two are nice and we made

posters for dance companies and maybe of

all the posters that we made maybe three

posters I can say are good and we make

we have to make 20 posters to make three

good posters so it's not that we only

make good work it's completely the

opposite to be honest

yeah I have a question how how do you

deal with the gray Zone um of of on the

one

hand um using images that were that are

not your own which you manipulate in a

way to make your own versus using images

which you put into a context so they

become like this kind of story or a

narration I'm especially asking it in um

in relation to like student work as well

because it's a thing like we consume

images so much yeah we're also drawn to

them and and somehow maybe we also want

to use them or consume them or reproduce

them especially if you're doing some

editorial design and you want to you

want to like you don't have the capacity

to take pictures for instance in the

same way like how you want to use some

pictures like I think it's a sometimes

like a a difficult but are you talking

about copyrights you talking more about

um why make new images if you can use

already existing images no no because I

I I think I I I don't really question

like why make new images but more like

how do you deal with yeah copyrights and

and the archive and I don't deal with it

I completely ignore the subject but then

I will will once told me why are you

bothering about these images because

they won't if you if you're talking

about printed matter they they hardly

ever traced back I think images are

easily to easily traced back maybe when

you use them online MH but if you print

them the small editions and

um they're quite obscure sources often

they're also translated they're not so

big used and then when will once said I

wouldn't worry about it I never worried

about it anymore you know and then I was

thinking I was like that's cool will

thank you for liberating me from that

from and then the other thing is I'm

never I'm also I'm chicken so I'm always

thinking it's not me who blames it's the

printer or the not the prin it's the

it's the it's the publisher who takes

the

responsibility so yeah like I said I'm

really and like if if the publisher says

I can handle it or roer you know Roa

often says I'm fine with it he's never

really so he's he's I think from

experience those there hasn't occurred

these type of things never actually so

maybe lucky until

now I mean I once used an image of um uh

a British

painter um she made these beautiful

Optical paintings and this was in a tiny

little magazine like a little and her

estate had seen this and and and luckily

the magazine that we made was called

Blind and so he said it's for the Blind

and

and and really got away with this and

I but I think it's but you

know you know I I I I think um I

understand the problem but I I like to

ignore

it so long so far so good so maybe this

talk should not be

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online um if no one else will

uh

oh a long job I don't even know if it's

a question but I it's it's been really

good to see this and it's it's also

really good to see how

you've edited your own categorized these

things you have different position in

relation to certain

works

and it's beautiful to be reminded that

you talk about and Goldstein as the

person that you were working with as in

the same way as Nigel was the person

that you were working

with and it's also beautiful to um I

mean it's great to finally see more of

this CU I've seen the ring B news with

but I've notic in images of the work he

did with my men my this is only a tiny

amount of work yeah right mhm and

there's that ongoing

that that feels like as an a result of a

long ongoing process and friendship with

arm of course

MH and it was really nice to see that

this sheet that you and am man had made

for the St of these positions these

different positions that are

possible with these three words and how

you organize them on the page there's

actually a few more sheets also with the

colors and also with the dimensions of

the things that we had to make so it's

actually only like I mean the UN

fraction of let's say what this identity

how this identity was carried out over

several other things there's much more

to it anyway but a lot of those things

are conceived like in very casual I mean

you say it yourself oh we knew it within

3 seconds in the lift going down

and I know of you that your work looks

extremely casual and it's not

and I I just wonder what the difference

is between handing a work or producing a

tool for other people to work with like

fing and the St at Museum or the boy on

and and how like sh says it's like what

would l i mean I'm me is probably

sitting there using his tour his

assistant s he's also thinking what

would Linda do what would Linda do I'm

not so sure cuz he he's probably having

that conversation with you in his

head and that's not also absolutely

editorial conversation it's not just a

formal I think you done Julie pointed it

out that you're an incredible edor as

well I think you downplay that here but

I'm not sure I'm just wondering about

how you hand tools over to for other

people to use when they're definitely

idiosyncratic and they're derived from

an understanding of print techologies MH

and you have to start from scratch with

these grids and structures that you want

other people to use as opposed to

Instagram or you know an existing

structure that you just throw content

in it's not even if it's a question it's

just

like how do

you what's your experience with ir

and their use of your tools as opposed

to the State Museum and their use of

your tools and how and not so much diff

there's not so there's not such a big

difference not at all um um no I think I

think it's also

um maybe always trying to think ahead

like um maybe if I would want to make my

own things um you sometimes say like oh

I don't need any rules I can do whatever

I want but the nature of these type of

assignments like whether they identities

or whether working with huge archives or

multiple images that end end up in in

one thing um it only works when there's

when you start applying rules and um I

think many of the identities that we

have done is always like how can the

identity survive because um you never

know whether you're going to be whether

you're going to be the person who will

execute this or whether they whether you

will have whether you will be

participating in this and so every

identity that we have made somehow

um

became something as an experience for

the next one you know so the first one

with boy months we were just kicked out

after two years we never had we had

hardly ever we hardly even had the

possibility to work with the

identity but we knew that the type phase

was strong and could you know have a

longer life it was kind of molested but

that's

okay you know and when we when we were

working for the state look we were

actually thinking this is the opposite

we are not going to be kicked out

because we love to work with an

Goldstein and it's going to it's it's so

nice to be able to think about an

identity which has um rules and starting

points but it also has enough space for

us to play with it you know so and then

we really thought this is this is nice

because we don't want to hammer it

entirely down but we will will be able

to develop it in a kind of a loose way

and that failed because

um we weren't kicked out immediately but

and you know um stopped working for the

St quite soon and then we went on to

make an exhibition of an identity for

the Museum of Contemporary Art in

Chicago and then we knew for instance

that we were not going to work with the

identity so it's also like how can an

identity then be made

without us you know so then we decided

to make a very strong type face so it's

always trying to be strategic in in what

is the best way for this specific setup

it's and and I was always shocked that

identities have a very brief life

nowadays because I was thinking it needs

to be at least there for 5 to 10 years

because then you know it you don't have

to do so much but now you almost have to

make it work from day one so that it's

stable for maybe one two years three

years I don't know but we always came up

with new strategies according to it's

the nature of how we imagined it to work

but yeah I don't think we made ever a

successful identity in that sense they

are

fragile they're very um you have to be a

little bit

lucky but with ir it's kind of nice you

know um I actually I started using a lot

the union which was the font that we

used for the state look because I

thought if we can't use it if I can't

use it for the for uh St I'm going to

use it for Arman it's my project you

know and I don't does that help a bit or

is that proper no maybe not tiny besides

the point answer question yes um I

really liked what you said about um that

like you don't try to give an impression

like to be better than you actually are

yes when youfor that's really true and

yeah I was I was curious if like this is

something that was always kind of in you

or is that something you learned no I

think you know

um um I think

I think both Amar and I come from very

modest um background and um I think

we're typical the product of um social

democracy in the 60s 7s ' 80s in the

Netherlands we were really the product

of

um you

know um good

education um we could go to school we

had good libraries that started to pop

up we were we were we were had we had

access to things that our parents never

had access to so we just ended up

um um going to Art School which is

unheard of you know for people from I

come from Farmers families you know not

so far from here so like art school was

like out of Out Of Reach for anyone so I

think we never learned how to behave

even

you know we we have no idea of um how to

stand proudly next to our work or how to

own our work I think we mostly feel that

we try to good to do a good job for the

the projects that we've been asked for

and we try we try to take responsibility

for them but not without any let's say

um not not in a lame way you know we

want to do them in an interesting way so

there is a certain confidence in how we

want to treat these projects but it's

not that we want to stand behind beside

him and

look I did that I think this is um um

this feels bad or we don't know how to

do it we don't know how to sell each our

work we we don't have a website we know

we don't even publish you know even when

we publish this one book it's actually

more something that we'd like to do

rather than um saying giving any

information that would help us

because I think a lot of the stories

that that maybe drive our work is

interesting that's why I sometimes do a

talk because I think okay you know I

shouldn't just be entirely silent about

what what we do because it might be good

for others to know or

to but um yeah does that answer your

question yeah it's maybe it's also a

little bit um something flams or what is

it

you know what I mean very modest or

maybe a

bit not too not too much bra or you know

what I mean you know it's very Dutch to

be the opposite to be like hello you see

me but I think maybe we both come from

the south and it's maybe also small

village mentality yeah it's also a way

to

like like move all the pressure of to

ignore it you could put on yourself yeah

and like to to create a free space to

actually design and like be in in the

moment with the stuff you have but I

also think do something really positive

but maybe it's also um I mean I I don't

necessarily always think as it as

something entirely positive it sounds I

don't want to sound it like false

modesty but I sometimes also think um I

know that I have a position and maybe I

should stand out more you know and stand

up for certain things and be more voice

myself because it might be important but

I don't take place in that D in that in

that Arena of discussions or you know so

I always think that maybe people who are

properly educated and know that when

they have an education they also take on

this position and um try to

say um maybe their ideas when it's

important you know so just but or they

publish or they but

yeah no I think I could and I should but

it's it it's just I think it also has to

do with priority maybe or being too busy

or exhausted by the every day you know

it's hard to to to try to make space for

that but maybe I

should maybe it's an idea to uh drink in

a c a train that would be so nice

now cuz they stay open so I think let's

go there and continue discussion uh but

not before we put our hands together one

more time

oh thank

you and