design platform
rotterdam essays
A series of essays on contemporary issues in design and culture
In 2008 we began working with the Design Platform Rotterdam to produce a series of essays which discuss a wide array of themes relevant to both local and global design contexts. As a versatile cultural platform with broad interests, some under development, the identity profited from an initial stage of exploration, not abstract proposals, but concrete development with emerging content.
The communication objective here is not only focused on designers but, perhaps more importantly, how society as a whole may benefit from design. For this reason the identity is supported by typefaces, and forms, which are already familiar elements to any PC user. ‘Times New Roman’, for example, is the default serif typeface for hundreds of millions of PC users, and the identity is able to reposition this familiar face in a way that serves as connective tissue for important issues that otherwise may be out of touch to a CEO from Dubai or the board of an NGO in New York.
All of the individual copies from each of the twelve essays, has been hand numbered. The essays were distributed during so called ‘Vlagplantsessies’, evenings which featured one or more discussions focused on the relevance of design
Traditional black and typical ‘Rotterdam green’ as well as a custom family of geometrically simplified type, with multiple levels of detail, complete the strict application of this identity.