Articles
This section offers a somewhat random selection of articles I wrote across the years.
I have worked as a journalist and critic (theatre, literature, dance, media, design) from 1981 onwards, and I’ve written hundreds of pieces – maybe around a thousand in all –, many of which are short reviews or concise topical interviews, and aren’t really worth republishing. There are no digital files from the first 15 years or so, and I will have to transcribe those that should be included here. I made a first selection of what was readily available. I hope this list will be growing over the coming months.
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Various, 2007-2017. A personal appreciation of the personality and work of Dutch designer Ben Bos. The article originally appeared in Dutch and French (in Belgium’s Addmagazine), was, at Ben’s request, translated into English and Persian (Farsi) for an Iranian monograph, and finally republished posthumously with a new introduction in a special Modernism edition of Dutch magazine De Boekenwereld (Book World).
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PAGE, 2016. German translation of my introduction to I Love Times, produced by PAGE magazine for their feature Tschüss Times (Goodbye Times), April 2016.
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Novo Tipo, 2015. Introduction to Mark van Wageningen’s brochure that accompanied the Typewood project.
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Viction:ary, Hong Kong. 2014. Introduction to I Love Times, Vol. 8 of the I Love Type series, conceived, edited and designed by Lupi Asensio and Martin Lorenz (Twopoints.net).
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Viction:ary, Hong Kong. 2011. Introduction to I Love Gill Sans, a volume in the I Love Type series, conceived, edited and designed by Lupi Asensio and Martin Lorenz (Twopoints.net).
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Mota Italic, 2011. German translation by Sonja Keller.
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Mota Italic, 2011. My introduction to the first publication produced and published by Rob and Sonja Keller’s type gallery Mota Italic is a personal view of Berlin type culture and its context.
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Eye, 2008. For the special issue “Beyond the canon” editor John Walters invited collaborators to submit a less-known designer of importance. Mine: Cuban poster designer Eladio Rivadulla.
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Boekblad, 2010. Artikel over de cultuur van het boekomslagontwerp, vroeger en nu, en de fnuikende invloed van het marketingdenken.
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Grafik , 2010. One-page article for Grafik magazine’s Letterform series. My piece did not make the booklet ‘Letterform Collected’, which came out in 2009, just before I received the assignment.
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Eye Magazine, Summer 2007. Andrea Tinnes makes type families — functional or ornamental — that quickly acquire a life of their own.
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Eye Magazine, Spring 2006. Type designer Cyrus Highsmith learnt the craft through both study and apprenticeship.
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Items, 2006. Interview with Iranian designer Reza Abedini at the time of his book New Visual Culture of Modern Iran. He would later win a prestigious Dutch cultural Award and move to the Netherlands.
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Baseline magazine, 2006. When the function of a poster series is to announce a series of related events, building on each other, then a cumulative design can be an examplary form, or concept, that follows that function.
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TypoGraphic. ISTD, 2003. Throughout the 20th century in the Netherlands, there has been rivalry and downright animosity between the subsectors of graphic design and advertising. This article examines the artistic and political controversies behind that conflict.
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Items magazine, Amsterdam 2003. Based on a lecture by and interview with Sagmeister at the Grafik Europe conference in Barcelona. Original Dutch version plus my English translation.
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Items magazine, Amsterdam 2003, originally in Dutch. My English translation.
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Items magazine, Amsterdam, 1996. Article about the little known Dutch influences on Californian graphic design. Featuring the Rotterdam design group Hard Werken and its magazine of the same name – the mag that guided Emigre.