Speelplaats opens with a cumulative fourpart exhibition that presents a chronological,
mixed-up view of the Werkplaats Typografie
archive: Starting from Zero. Each installment will also host a discussion with a former
Werkplaats affiliate. The third installment
opens 29 May at 19:30 with presentations
by Cobbenhagen en Hendriksen and
Felix Weigand.
For the presentation we asked the students of the
Werkplaats Typografie (from here-on refered to as
WT) to formulate questions for us and send these in
advance. The presentation consisted of the answers
to all these questions. This catalogue is a transcrip­tion of the presentation.
Student 1 / Question 1: What is your motto?
If we’re not enjoying what we’re doing, we should
re-think our starting point, change the concept,
make it less complicated, stay closer to our own values
and ideas or dump the commissioner. Be honest.
For example, we were asked to think about a new
identity for the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht.
After having talked to the commissioner several times
we kept having the feeling that something was not
right. Their question didn’t make sense in relation
to their wishes. To show them this, we made a
powerpoint presentation showing an ‘over the top’
approach to the identity. We wanted to present them
the opposite of what they probably wanted to make
them realize what they actually were asking us: a
new letterhead in the same style as their existing
website. After the presentation the commissioner was
in shock. We proposed they would ask Min & Sulki
Choi, the designers of their website, to design a new
letterhead. Which they did.
S1 / Q2: What are your favorite names?
S1 / Q3: What natural (or supernatural) gift would
you most like to possess?
M: Photographic memory / C: Super speed reeding
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S1 / Q4: What is your favorite inanimated object?
Drop shadows. We just love them.
S1 / Q5: What is your dream of happiness?
S1 / Q6: If you had to explain what graphic
design is to my parents in one or two sentences,
what would you say?
It’s best not to go into details, just stick with saying
you’re making mostly printed matter, like books and
magazines. And no, you do not write them, someone
else provides you with the content and your task is to
compose this.
S1 / Q7: Have you ever been to see Robert
Smithson’s ‘Broken Circle’ in Emmen? If so,
can you describe how to get there and whether
you think it’s worth the trip?
No we haven’t been there, but it looks like worth a trip!
S1 / Q8: Can you describe a scene from a film
that particularly affected you?
This is a scene from a movie I saw 23 times when I was
a teenager ‘The Vidiot from UHF’, where a bum and a
blind guy are sitting on a bench.
Blind Guy: (Turns Rubik’s Cube) Is this it?
Bum: Nope
Blind Guy: (Turns Rubik’s Cube Again) Is this it?
Bum: Nope (etc.)
Whenever I hear someone, in any context, say
‘is this it?’ I automatically picture this scene.
S1 / Q9: Of what do you consider yourself a 
connaisseur?
Of nothing really. We are very aware that there is much
more to know about almost everything (although
Chantal always comes across like she knows all about
everything). But when talking (more chatting actually)
to people we seem to have watched so much more
really bad television than any other, that we know quite
a lot about it.
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S1 / Q10: Describe a moment of epiphany from
your time at the WT.
We both learned at the WT that we don’t function
in massive group projects. The moment of epiphany
would be when we found out that working together
did work. It was an ‘official’ exam we made dealing
with all we had seen and read for the theoretical
program by Maxine Kopsa. We made a publication
that consisted of all the answers of the participants
ordered by the questions.
S2 / Q1: What is your favorite work that you have
done till now, regardless to the client’s opinion?
The work we do for De Hallen Haarlem. Because the
identity we designed for them excists out of cutting
vertically into every possible typefase, the identity of
museum is always visible and at the same time each
artist/show has its own character. We like the fact that
this gives us a lot of freedom to make a new design for
every exhibition.
S2 / Q2: What is your ordering system of your
bookshelf?
Books of C and books of M.
S2 / Q3: What was Werkplaats Typografie for you?
With one word. And why?
S2 / Q4: If you can stay in another place for one
year, where do you want to stay? (For working or
vacation whatever...)
There’s no place like home
S3 / Q1&2: I could grasp little from the website in
dutch; I know very little of their work – it’ll be
great to have the lecture. I tried some questions
here, putting together some personal interest
with some findings on their work: Do you think
that what is suggested in this title (‘History will
be kind to me for I intend to write it’) could apply
extensively to your design practice? If so, do you
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see differences among commercial / self-initiated
/ research (through institutions) practices?
Yes, you could or even should apply this title also to
graphic design. Not that writing history is a literal goal,
but to be as renewing as possible in relation to the
assignment, profession and yourself is definitely
something to try to achieve. This implicates that there
shouldn’t be a difference between commercial and
non-commercial assignments, but probably there’s
a difference in the opinion of being renewing at any
cause. We take the commission of Tubelight (for
which we work for free) as serious as for example
a stamp for TNT.
Tubelight is a review magazine for contemporary art
and appears 6 times a year. The fact that it is a reviewmagazine with a certain reference/agenda-function is
the basis for the design. The tab-system emphasizes
the functionality of the magazine, but at the same time
we take the freedom to use the tabs in a different way
each new issue.
S3 / Q3: To me, this project for the Amsterdam
Hogeschool seems also to address this issue; And
this Annual Report to the JVE also. These three
projects seem to pose/touch this questioning in a
critical way – demanding reflection and/or
participation. The three of them are instruments
of/for education institutions. I’d be glad to hear
whatever you have to say about this issue I’m
tending to outline from some of your practice.
On the stamp 125 years Vereniging Rembrandt a
selection of signatures is visible from a wide range
of artists, who’s work is purchased with the support
of the Vereniging Rembrandt. A curl rises from this
collection, which shows a vignette symbolising a
certification mark that the Vereniging Rembrandt
leaves after having supported a work.
S4 / Q1&2&3: Bach or Beethoven / Rabobank
or ABN AMRO / Black or white
Bach and Beethoven / ABN AMRO and Rabobank /
Grey and pink
S5 / Q1: Which artists inspire you and why?
From left to right: Johnny Cash / Gordon Matta Clark /
Brian Ferry / Pippilotti Rist / Eduardo Chillida / Barry
White / Richard Serra / Blondie / Joost Conijn /
Madonna / Fischli & Weiss etc.
S6 / Q3&4: Do you prefer Cotton or Silk?
Are you more plastic or wood?
Cotton and wood.
S6 / Q5: Name your top 10 favorite pieces of
graphic design.
This list can change, but for now we show, clockwise,
starting upper left: Flag by Jaap Kroneman / Poster by
Saul Bass / Salon d’automobile, 1964 / The First
Cuckoo, Letters to The Times since 1900 / Coup d’oeil
(collection of photography editions, France 1969) /
Rebus for IBM by Paul Rand / Poster by Sean Carmody /
Mitim (Gamma) by Radim Pesko and Louis Lüthi /
Stamp by Hansje van Halem / Poster by Koit Rändmaa /
Pillar by Petra Stavast
S6 / Q6: How much money do you earn per
month?
Less than average.
S5 / Q2: If you wouldn’t be a graphic designer
what would you be?
M: Pastry chef / C: Building constructor
Being critical, asking questions, this whole quest is so
important when you’re part of an educational system,
that it should be everywhere. These places should
breath questions, uncertainty, reflection, search etc,
and not only through students but it should be also a
way of communicating. That’s what we’re trying to
achieve when we work for these kinds of institute’s.
The self critical attitude of an institute reflects this
onto the attitude of its students, expecting from them
to act like this as well.
S3 / Q4: Could you say something about the path
of practice / reflection on the different contexts
you’ve been through – WT, JVE, studio, teaching;
considering there’s also the different timing of
those experiences, it would be nice to grasp any
particularities of that, if they’re meaningful to
you to any extent.
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Probably this so called path, or staying in a way
connected to an institute, provides us with a great
deal of freedom. Although we actually only work for
commissioners it is very important to keep our own
identity and opinion in relation to these commissions.
Our own development is most important, we are aware
of that, and by choosing this so called ‘path’ we want
keep and expand this.
S5 / Q3: Do you have any other goals besides
continuing with your studio?
This question almost depressed us: first we thought,
no, we just want to continue what we’re doing and
keep growing and developing. And then we imagined
still being in the same studio in 20 years from now and
that frightened us and felt suffocating. So, yes,
probably have lots of other goals, but those will
become clear as we go along. Maybe we want to work
more for international commissioners or teach more
abroad or change our work-environment at one point.
S6 / Q1&2: How do you combine your sport-life/
mother with graphic design?
S6 / Q7: What is your type of man?
S6 / Q8: Have you ever been to prison?
No
S7 / Q1: When in your life did you work the
hardest?
M: Although we hardly work in evenings and/or
weekends and everything always feels under controle,
it would be now / C: At the Rietveld. Not that I worked
harder than now, but I had the hardest time there.
S7 / Q2: What is your favorite underground
(subway) transit map?
None, but we did find a website on which you can
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plan bicycle-routes in Amsterdam. Here is how we
both cycle to the studio every day.
collections we search for features, cliché’s and
forms of appearance of themes or technical developments in the history of media-art in relation to a
specific exhibition.
each exhibition has a clear difference in subject and
technique. We chose to isolate these different ‘bodies
of work’ by wrapping the different sections. It looks as
if another section could easily be added. Because of
the size of his work we placed the images bleeding on a
page, so you would get a same kind of ‘in your face’
effect as the work does in reality.
S7 / Q3: Have you ever been to ‘Lucky Lukes’?
?
S7 / Q4: What’s your favorite gadget right now?
We show our least favorite gadgets: A ball to sit on,
which is highly unpractical. And a ball, which is an art
object, that was the graduation-gift of the WT to the
students that graduated the year C did.
S8 / Q1: Who’s your favorite tutor person
at the WT?
Anniek Brattinga
S8 / Q2: Is the commissioner a prison guard?
Absolutely not. For us – the way we work – an assignment, problem or question is a necessary starting
point. Without that we’re hopelessly lost. But it is not
that we want the give an answer right away. With the
question, our process starts. We research the background of this question, who’s asking, why? Is it the
right question? To which solution does the commissioner implicitly refer? Why should it be a book, or
catalogue etc. By researching this we try to formulate
a more relevant frame of reference for ourselves and
the commissioner. So it is important to maintain a
good and interesting relationship with the commissioner, and we see it rather as an cooperation. It is not
that we try to avoid commissioners for whom this is
not possible, but I suppose we make already clear in
the very beginning how we work. That’s why they
choose to work with us. We hope.
For example, in the identity for the Netherlands
Media Art Institute we visually research the question
‘what is media-art?’. In the design-process we found
out that we didn’t know so much about media art and
it very much seemed to deal with technique. So we
use the identity to learn more about it and at the
same time show this to the public. Within the image
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S8 / Q3: Do you have the feeling that the quality
of graphic design in the WT got more worse after
you left it?
Got more worse? It is hard to judge the WT in that way
for us, because we used to be part of it. But now that
we have more distance, it seems that there’s a lot of
interesting things going on. So probably, it is still the
same interesting environment.
S8 / Q4: Would you have been more or less
successful because of the WT?
More successful, due to 2 years more experience,
confidence, network, knowledge etc.
S9 / Q1: Which are your favorite books, (and
projects) you designed?
The publication we made for the artist Cornelius
Quabeck. At the time we made the publication he had
had 5 solo-exhibitions. The work that he makes around
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S11 / Q2: Why are you working together?
If we worn’t working together the work of C would
probably turn out quite unclear and vague, less
detailed or not even finished at all, and M’s will be less
renewing, stiff and rigid. So – it sounds corny – but we
do complete each other in the design process.
S9 / Q2: What did you learn (remember something
in particular) from Karel,  Armand, Maxine?
From Karel Martens: details in typography /
the 2 mm grid / music on the page / nothing is for
nothing. From Armand Mevis: defining a strong
starting point and concept to built from. To try to
exceed yourself with every new work. Maxine Kopsa:
looking at/reflecting on contemporary art. And not to
be afraid to have your own interpretation.
S10 / Q1: What is your favorite Steven
Spielberg-film?
We don’t have a strong affection with Steven Spielberg
films, but if we have to choose: M: ET / C: War of the
worlds, although I prefer the book.
S11 / Q1: What happened after you graduated
from the WT?
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S11 / Q3: Did you like your workshop in Estonia?
Were you happy with it?
The workshop in Tallinn was our first experience in
teaching. But thanks to the good atmosphere and
enthousiastic students it felt very natural. With the
assignment we gave all the participants could connect.
They used the story of The Flying Enterprise as the
starting point and inspiration to make/design 16 pages
of a book. This resulted in quite a divers document
containing the different angles, interpretations,
fantasies, etc on the story. Everybody worked really
hard to get it all finished in a small print run for a
presentation, which was amazing to be part of. The
school never closes, the students never stop. We could
book bind till 4 in the morning and there was such an
eager–for–more atmosphere.