A2 double-sided dust jacket containing bricolage poster and image catalogue.

The research project Marble & Metadata investigates the transition from ancient artefact to digitised 3D models. The Nefertiti bust, dated to the 14th century B.C., rediscovered in 1912, digitised in 2008, and released under the Creative Commons License in 2019, provides an interesting case study. Thousands of models, modifications and variations circulate through internet platforms like Etsy and Sketchfab, often associated with maker spaces, craft culture and hobbyists, but also commercial corporations like Kuka, an international company specialised in automatization, and Prusa, an open-source 3D printer manufacturer, showcase their products and services through demonstrating the reproduction of the iconic Nefertiti bust. The changing condition of materiality challenges the traditional understandings of material culture. How does the physical ancient singular artefact relate to the multiplicity of its digital replicates? How do we interpret and look at digitised models when traditional methods of interpretation, closely linked to material condition and authenticity, seem insufficient for the approach of the digital objects?

The project developed into an academic essay and a substantial body of visual research material. Herewith, the bilingual publication (ENG/NL) aids the argument of the paper by supporting the theoretical analysis with references from mass media and digital culture. In addition, the screen captures from digital three-dimensional modelling software Blender demonstrate the obscure relation between physical material conditions and digital materiality. The poster wrapping the publication takes the approach of the bricoleur, as defined by Claude Lévi-Strauss, as acting from amateurism and affection. Assemblage, collage and montage form the basis in obscuring the material condition of ancient archaeological heritage and shatter the singularity of authentic artefacts into a multiplicity of mutable appearances.

Self initiated A4 research publication with A2 dust jacket fold-out poster.

LINKS & FURTHER READING:
→ Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nefertiti: The Replica
→ Downloadlink to the Nefertiti 3D model
→ Paul Leonardi, Digital materiality? How artifacts without matter, matter, 2010.
→ Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, 1966.
→ Douglas Davis, The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction, 1995.
→ Mark Deuze, Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture, 2006.

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A2 double-sided providing a sneak peak into both the installation of Jasper de Beijer and the mural design

The solo exhibition Critical Mass at Museum Rijswijk exhibited the works of Jasper de Beijer. With a large site-specific installation, revisiting a selection of the oeuvre that spreads over two and a half decades, the exhibition provided a unique insight into the research driven method of Jasper de Beijer. References from a wide variety of sources are gathered and translated into elaborate hand build maquettes. The photographic works record the assembled scenes, occupying an intriguing position between forensic reconstructions and crafted artistic imaginations.

Together with graphic designer Evy van Schelt, the design trajectory unfolded in a media campaign that both provided a sneak-peak into the with blacklight illuminated installation, and the research driven approach of Jasper de Beijer. With the aim of providing insight into the rich research method and extensive visual archive material a large mural design was developed, containing over three hundred cross references to the exhibited artworks. Covering over forty meters, the mural design reflects and emphasises the sheer quantity, variation and diversity of the archival material involved in the creation of the forensic art works.

Exhibition view with captures of the mural designed for Critical Mass.

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Entire societal notions of work, those who perform it and the working environment itself, drastically changed throughout the twentieth century. The modernisation of labour processes and mechanical manufacturing moved a majority of the working class out of the workshops and into the offices: transforming a workforce of blue-collar factory workers to a dominance of white-collar office workers. While the clergy lost its glamour and appeal, the tools of the stationary environment remain seemingly unaffected. Yet how do utility objects resist the mutability of change and what principles determine the immutability of office artefacts?

Through a close analysis of the Leitz Arch File Classic Marbled, as archetype of stationary equipment, the publication investigates how the utilities of work remain unaltered in an ever-changing working environment. This examination develops in a twofold analysis. First, by connecting the binder to the overarching typology of the office environment, supported by an inquiry into the social history of office labour, the paper aims to distil motivations of mutability. What societal changes affected the white-collar labour and how is this mirrored through the design of stationary equipment and the office environment? Second, in order to distil the principles of immutability, the close analysis of the Leitz Ordner aims to unravel how the artefact resisted change.

While the immutability of the Leitz Ornder can be attributed to principles of efficiency and standardisation, affecting foremost the function and production of the binder, there is a visual element too that contributes to the primary function. This is the marbled texture that functions as a semiotic device to connote a sense of legacy and authority. The marbled paper, namely, vaguely resembles the long-lasting tradition of marbling paper and the provenance of the connotative meaning of the marble material. Thus, the texture strengthens a claim of lineage and solidifies the long heritage of the artefact. Therewith the historicity of the binder itself, and the marbled texture, serve as evidence to guarantee the trustworthiness of the utility. The triad of historical legacy, trust, and the semiotic texture, thus legitimises the absence of change.

The aim for the publication is to visualise the gravity of the drastic changes in the office environment and consequently, the working conditions. Furthermore, aided by the visual research, the publication renders into visual appearance, the striking similarity of the contemporary Leitz Ordner with the historical precedents.

Self initiated A6 research publication

LINKS & FURTHER READING:
→ Algera, Kirsten. “Office Dreams.” MacGuffin: the life of things, Spring, 2020.
→ Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000.
→ Cobley, Evelyn. Modernism and the Culture of Efficiency Ideology and Fiction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2016
→ Djonov, Emilia, and Theo Van Leeuwen. “The semiotics of texture: from tactile to visual." Visual Communication 10, no. 4 (2011): 541-564.
→ Forty, Adrian. Objects of desire: design and society 1750-1980. London: Thames and Hudson, 1986.
→ Walker, John A., and Judy Attfield. Design history and the history of design. London: Pluto, 1989.
→ Woodward, Ian. Understanding Material Culture. London: Sage Publications, 2007./a>

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It is elemental in the age of climate catastrophe to strive for ‘kinship’ in pursuit of experiencing and imagining the connection between all life forms. Curator Ilga Minjon therefore, in reference to Amitav Ghosh, aims to emphasise in the exhibition that the climate crisis is foremost a crisis of imagination. This is demonstrated, for example, in the work of Risk Hazekamp in collaboration with Scape Agency and cyanobacteriain an installation in which the cyanobacteria affect the gelatine emulsion of a photographic filmstrip; thus, co-creating with nonhuman lifeforms. Overlooking the symbiotic relationship is rooted in what anthropologist Arturo Escobar problematises as the Cartesian tradition of dualism; favouring rationality in separating culture from nature.

Like the curatorial framework bypasses ‘rationality’ as sole agent of reason, the visual strategy for the graphic design elements for the exhibition–façade lettering, handout, poster, animated exhibition text, advertisement and various online communication tools–aim to imagine detours from the legacy of the (rational) modern movement in graphic design in a threefold.

First, by utilising open source and communal developed 3D software, like Blender, the design process embraces communal tools instead of privatised instruments of big tech companies. Designing in a three-dimensional environment in addition allows to simulate environmental thinking and integrating the conditions of physical and natural reality. For the design of the graphic design ephemera, 3D software Blender was used to mimic the transitory conditions of the state of matter (from liquid to gas and vice versa). Thus, simulating environmental thinking, rather than illustrating it. Second, the typographic compositions bypass rational decision making in design and the grip of the grid on the organisation of visual communication. Instead, dismantled from the mathematical grid, text blocks turn into liquid forms floating freely throughout the page without sacrificing legibility. Third, by working with a diverse set of typographic styles the visual language promotes diversity over singularity. In addition, by utilising typefaces from small, independent, and culturally diverse type designers and foundries, the typographic style aims for connections and combinations; recognising therewith the typographic expressions that alter from the homogenising impact of the sans serif typographic style of the International Style.

Screencapture of the 3D Software interface simulating environmental thinking, rather than illustrating it.

Scan of the double-sided poster and exhibition handout, offset printing, 420 x 595 mm, 2022.

In the typographic toolset, the Nikita Regular (2012) by Floriane Rousselot and distributed by Typelab Foundry is used as the main display typeface. It is used for the exhibition typogram and adjusted to meet the advice of a committee (Stichting Oren en Ogen Tekort) that aims to make art accessible to the visually impaired. The new wave type design, matching the current stream of acid graphic design, appears as tentacle liquid forms; dismantled from any historical preceding movements or rational impetus in graphic- and type design. The freeform lettering is contrasted by the Monarch Nova, designed by Jacob Wise and released in 2020 by WiseType. The font is, as Jacob Wise puts it, Neohumanist in its reference to the neoclassical construction of letterforms; reconfiguring at the time the meaning of humanity. Informal unserifed elegant curves simultaneously allow to speculate an alternative turn to the rational impetus of the Enlightenment. The display typefaces are supported by the typeface Reforma (2018), designed by Alejandro Lo Celso, commissioned by the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina to translate plurality and versatility into letterforms.The hybrid of the oldstyle skeleton and contrast forms with a monoline sans serif, results in the sharp edged flare serif typeface, distributed under the Creative Commons license (CC-BY-ND 4.0). Not only does the free distribution support the strive for global and communal means of production, but is it by definition a typeface that in its synthesis of the intellectual heritage of Roman letterforms through the lens of an Argentinean type designer, distributed by a Latin American type foundry, truly bypasses the separation of the Global North and The Global South; in pursuit thus, of ‘pluriversal’ connections.


Commission, exhibition and production by Stroom in The Hague
Curated by Ilga Minjon
Typedesign by Floriane Rousselot, Jacob Wise and Alejandro Lo Celso
Photography by Hani Chladilová and Naomi Moonlion

LINKS & FURTHER READING:
→ Stroom, Den Haag (NL)
→ Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement Climate Change and the Unthinkable, 2016.
→ Arturo Escobar, Designs for the Pluriverse, 2018.
→ Arturo Escobar, Designs for the Pluriverse lecture at Clark University Atwood, March 16, 2017.
→ Donna Haraway, Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene, 2016.
→ Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, 2016.
→ TypeLab
→ WiseType: Monarch Nova
→ Pampatype Foundry: Reforma
→ The Design of Reforma
→ Typographica: Review of Reforma
→ Acid Graphic

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The Department of Energy [DOE] investigates how the river as natural occurrence influences the human environment both physical and cultural. Providing for fresh water, infrastructure, trade routes, borders and hydroelectricity, the river has become vital to the human environment. Water currents are worshipped through various religions and mythological narratives, varying from all around the globe.

The Department of Energy translates the physical places of the river valleys into audio experiences, supplemented with background and contextual understanding. The design takes an editorial approach, supplementing the audio experience – that liberates the river from its physical limitations – with background information on the local environment, tradition, nature, folklore, and mythological. The project resulted in an ever emerging visual identity and the Aghavrick Acid compact disck album that was released on the 10th of July 2020.

Department of Energy Identity Archive

LINKS & FURTHER READING:
→ The Department of Energy
→ @the_doe_________
→ DOE001: Aghavrick Acid Album
→ DOE: SoundCloud

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Corona Civica – Bachelor Thesis, 2019.

Visual communication (often unconsciously) heavily relies on symbolism. My bachelor thesis is a dichotomous exploration of symbolic language that investigates; (1) the transition from origin and physical application towards visual representation, and (2) the shift in meaning of symbolism. The research is conducted through the case study of the laurel wreath, a symbol internationally applied to represent victory, unity and peace.

The origin of the laurel wreath can be found in Greek mythology, in a story in which Apollo’s undesired love results in a transformation, followed by the total destruction of his concubine. It is in the Roman tradition that the laurel wreath acquires the status of Corona Civica – the civil crown – an honour that can only be achieved through military conquest. The origin of meaning aims at a specific interpretation of victory, namely through destruction or domination of the other.

Nevertheless, the same visual rhetoric is applied for peace keeping organisations such as the United Nations, anarchists counter movements like Anonymous, fascist, nationalists but certainly also commercial driven companies like Fred Perry. Napoleon himself preferred the civil crown over the crown of Charlemagne during his coronation in 1804, and Beyoncé reminds us of this rhetoric in her 2018’s music video of Apes**t.

The continuous aim to create open accessible work resulted in an experiment in which the entire design of the publication is generated by an online css script. The thesis is completely accessible online through Github, where the publication can be generated via the print command. (please consider that the prototype has been created to function on chrome and may result into error if used on another browser)

LINKS & FURTHER READING:
→ Github
→ Apes**t
→ Download
→ KABK: Graphic Design Thesis Archive
→ Graphic Design Thesis Collection 2019

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Even the simplest and most ordinary of user objects represent the cultural environment in which it is shaped, used, desired and created. The elements composing the object – visual appearance, method of production and materiality – can be understood as signifier and representation of cultural values. This is the language of the object.

Research plates, workdrawings and process.

The designed (research-) plates enhance contemporary aesthetics and function as ornamental fragments to exposes utilities as cultural representations. Epigrams are blended into the native typography of the object, namely the production labels. These labels form the DNA of the object, its origin, country of production, copyright ownership and material components. The labels are repurposed to supplement a narrative that guides towards an understanding of the language of objects.



Special thanks to Silvio Lorusso, Jan Robert Leegte and Thomas Buxo for guiding the project.

LINKS & FURTHER READING:
→ Kopytoff, Igor 'The Cultural Biography of Things'. 1986.
→ Hardings, A. 'Introduction: Biographies of Things'.
→ Flemming, K. 'The one edge razor: A vivid medium of creativity and meaning'.
→ Latour, B. 'Technology is society made durable'. 1991.
→ Bridges, Thomas 'The adventures of a bank-note'. 1759 – 1775.
→ Norman, D. 'The Design of Everyday Things'. 2013
→ Are.na: Contemporary Ornament (link to visual research)

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Pirate libraries aim to share publications with the ideology to make knowledge accessible to all. The internet itself has been created with the intention of sharing information and therewith have the exceptional potential to obliviate (physical-) borders and transform the ownership of knowledge into an obsolete concept. The Pirate Reader: on Mobility is an attempt to join and support that effort and ideology in provocation against the privatisation of intelligence.

The material concerning the topic of mobility, in ownership of the Royal Library in The Hague (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) – accessible only due request and solely to be inspected at the reading halls of the Royal Library itself – was collected and scanned manually and reorganised as one. The collection of sources, publishers and various authors are distilled into one publication on Mobility, shared through online and open source platform Github and in printed format on Lulu (and downloadable through the webpage), fully typeset in Liberation Mono, a typeface designed by Steve Matteson, registered within the Open Font License.

Special thanks to Thomas Buxo for guiding the project.

LINKS & FURTHER READING:
→ Github
→ Lulu: The Pirate Reader on mobility
→ SIL Open Font License (OFL)
→ Liberation Mono
→ www.aaaaarg.fail
→ aaaaarg (Monoskop)
→ The Internet Archive
→ Koninklijke Bibliotheek

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The Anthroposcent is the branding proposal for a fragrance based on the exquisite minerals of the new geological epoch proposed as the Anthropocene – an era in which mankind is to be considered the most influential aspect of environmental change. The project is an embodiment of research into the topic of the Anthropocene and uses contemporary commercial (visual-) language to engage into a teasing meaningful flirt with ethics of the industry. It aims at the connection between luxurious products and scarcity of natural ingredients, and is reaching out within its own intonation for ways to communicate a message of social, political and environmental relevancy.

Bottle design (3D print & Render)

Special thanks goes out to Hamish Gardner, Alec Mezzetti and The Beautiful Meme for the support and guidance of the project.

LINKS & FURTHER READING:
→ Welcome To the Anthropocene
→ Rock solid evidence of Anthropocene seen in 208 minerals
→ Marks of the Anthropocene
→ Global Floodmap
→ Manifest for the Anthropos [Bachelor of Design thesis by Jordy Ringeling, 2017]
→ RRUFF: Mineral database
→ The Anthropocene epoch: scientists declare dawn of human-influenced age
→ Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today

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