TRENDS in GRAPHIC DESIGN: ARTGRAFICA (the Netherlands)

last | next

What you see is the cover of the ‘Muze van het Museumplein’, a magazine about classical music I design together with Martin van Amerongen. The typography and logo had been established in the first initial design but that is about the only restriction I impose on myself. Per issue there is complete freedom about designing the content. The images are produced as much as possible on commission, either by ourselves or by a third party. This particular image is an example of a unique co-operation between illustrator Carolyn Ridsdale and myself. She is a cartoonist by origin but was fed up with that particular style of working and therefore developed a new way of illustrating. She creates collages of existing photo material from magazines, but goes one step further than cutting parts and putting them together again. All the ‘snippets’ are used as drawing material, you could say like paint. The result is quite daring and very original. On the design you can see a part of an illustration used for the article inside about Wynton Marsalis.

When I hire an illustrator or photographer, he or she should be totally free. At that particular moment, I already have an idea what I am looking for, but I avoid being too explicit. The results of working in this way are quite surprising.
Often photographers and illustrators make more than one proposal and we adapt all this material to get the best possible result. It is more than just reserving a white space to be filled later with a design or photograph.
Exchanging ideas in this way is stimulating and does result in new ways of working.

Muze van het Museumplein

last | next