Breda: A Dutch Town Gone Graphic Design Crazy

Hands down, Dutch design is definitely a bit famous. From: Wim Crouwel to Experimental Jetset, from the likes of Tord Boontje to Hella Jongerius and Marcel Wanders, of course. However there’s a rising design star on the block! Drum roll please… Breda! This idyllic city in the south of the Netherlands ambitiously aims to be the next design capital. For the last month, the new Graphic Design Festival Breda (GDFB) filled the city with, yes, graphics in every size and shape. The D.I.Y. festival with a minimalist slash as their logo consisted of tons of exhibitions, screenings, events, workshops and more to confront visitors and residents alike with graphic design as something that can be either be brand new, historic, controversial, or VJ’d — and happening first and foremost in Breda. PingMag reports and has a talk with festival director Dennis Elbers about the unexpected media frenzy it stirred.

Written by Leslie Kuo

The Goal

The aim was to establish not just the Graphic Design Festival Breda as a regular event on the international design agenda, but have Breda recognised as the design capital.

So how did it go? Dennis, tell us a bit about yourself first. You studied art, then shifted to curating, started Stichting KOP [pictured above] and then the festival. More details, please!

I’m 29 years old, grew up in The Hague and moved to Breda to study art. After graduating as a painter in 2003, I set up the KOP foundation, a non-profit art space run by artists. Organising exhibitions for KOP took up a lot of time, but I very much enjoyed it. By doing so my practice shifted from being an artist into being a curator. In 2006 I decided to start my own company as a freelance curator. In this role I make exhibitions and publications for art spaces, museums and commercial clients. I give advice to talented artists and institutions and develop my own ideas on how to present contemporary art and design.

Breda and graphic design? Historical context can be found at Breda’s Museum, where, right now, Premsela foundation is presenting ‘Golden Age’ — 100 years of classic Dutch poster and book design. Here’s one by Theodorus Molkenboer in 1897, showing the roots of the later De Stijl movement.

Another fantastic poster of the ‘Golden Age’ exhibition. Albert Pieter Hahn made this during De Stijl’s heyday in 1919, but chose to reach back to Art Nouveau style. Both images courtesy of Premsela.

How did you get the idea for a Graphic Design Festival or GDFB? It coincided with the re-launch of Breda’s De Beyerd art museum as the new Museum for Graphic Design…

About one and a half years ago, the City Council asked me to think of a concept that would show the world that Breda and Graphic Design are well connected. For once, the AKV|St.Joost design academy has educated many international designers in the past 40 years, and also the new museum displays many design icons. So I wanted to set up a series of events that show contemporary design in an unconventional manner. There was no better timing than the coinciding with the opening of the museum. The festival fills the gaps left by the museum and vice versa. GDFB challenges young emerging designers to showcase themselves in an inspiring atmosphere.

In its public space projects, GDFB commissioned dozens of new works… This is from Zucker + Pfeffer from Berlin/Amsterdam.

The MUPI project placed 67 brand-new, one-of-a-kind posters in public billboard spaces. Here, one by Loulou (Tilburg, NL). Both photos by Stefan Scheele.

The connection between the 67 mysterious one-off-posters became illuminated at night…

… the festival’s slash appeared in each one. Both photos by Lisette Spee.

The festival featured over 30 projects. Out of them, MUPI which means Mobilier Urbain a Publicité Illuminé or ‘illuminated billboards’. Each of the 67 designers showed one unique poster [pictured above]. During daylight hours there was no apparent connection between the two, but at night fall, the illumination revealed the slash - the symbol of the festival - in every one. Did people notice and if so, how did they respond?

Poster by 75b showing controversial former Dutch minister for Immigration and Integration, Rita Verdonk for a fake campaign for Zeeman textiles. It was down only after one day…

I’m sure people noticed the project! Some of these exclusive posters were stolen…
Another poster, designed by studio 75b, caused a small riot [pictured below]. They used the layout and logo of an H&M’s fashion campaign and combined this with a photo of a controversial Dutch politician [right-wing populist Geert Wilders]. It was not that 75b is a big fan of either, but they wanted to confuse the audience by combining these unconventional icons. Well, they caused big confusion! The public noticed the poster and started asking H&M why they advertised with this controversial politician. H&M ordered it to be removed by the company that rents out the MUPI spaces. This caused a riot. GDFB was not informed about the removal and ordered the poster to be put up again. How can a big multinational company overrule the government and censor an art project?

The story got a lot of media attention. It was in newspapers and on television. [See the videocast of the local news on it.] H&M threatened us with a lawsuit, but we had strong arguments. In the end, we put the poster back on the street, and removed it after 5 minutes to have it replaced by a new design by 75b [pictured up left]. This new poster again included another controversial politician, Rita Verdonk, and a cheap fashion brand, Zeeman, to show that these icons were picked at random, in order to make the public aware of the amount of advertising we encounter every day. Also, this second poster caused a riot…
At the moment, our contract for the MUPI is expired. All posters are now on display at KOP and there is a publication for sale, which has almost sold out.

Wow, a riot about a poster! Another project in the public space was ‘Projector Spectre’ consisting of 10 projections around the city. We heard that one had to be shut down because pranksters replaced the graphic design with porn. Is that true?!

Yep… the projectors are sometimes placed in people’s living rooms in order to project an image on the building opposite. Some students couldn’t resist their urges and replaced our DVD with one out of their private collection. Right in the city centre (near the church) some other graphic material was projected. The police found out, busted the door and confiscated our projector. After this incident, we set up the projector at another location.

But overall, the public response was great! Sometimes at night I went out and observed the public being confronted with the projections. It often was a nice surprise to see that it put a smile on their faces. They all stopped and looked for a moment. Some of them took pictures. Two projections were interactive where people could actually influence what they saw.

Nice! The festival is such an interesting hybrid–low-budget and artist-organised-action meets institutional involvement and funding. What are the challenges and benefits to working with alternative spaces, museums, the city, and corporations at the same time?

This would be a projection by Breda-based studio Battery Battery onto an idyllic Breda building.

I chose this set-up because I wanted to realise an appealing festival from the start. By working with many institutions and organisations we spread the financial risk and had many people working on exhibitions. Moreover, we got a wide media range and reached a large existing target group. The overall budget of the festival was tight, but all partners put in great effort, time and money — which made it possible to set up such a broad program. Also, another benefit was using the different characters of all partners to reach scholars, students, professional and the general public.

We liked the festival graphics! Cleverly executed with a low-budget and temporary signage that could be stuck anywhere (magnets, stick-on 3D signs). And the pastel colours were charming, as they were kind of like cheap photocopy paper. But you also had really nicely printed postcards and books. Then there’s the slash as a logo — a symbol of dividing but also combining. Was the design intended to reflect the festival’s low-budget aspect?

All festival graphics were designed by Rob van Hoesel. Indeed we were on a tight budget, but still Rob managed to design a very appealing range of items. Due to sponsor deals with a printer and a paper wholesale company we managed to make some nice books. The design reflects what the festival was about. Such was the concept of the logo and the use of the slash as a symbol of connecting and being part of a bigger whole. The items like posters, flyers, signage, tape, books, the website and program all show the core of the festival: They are inventive solutions to create a maximum effect with a minimal budget!

During the festival: Sweatshop inside KOP, a massive t-shirt show curated by Staynice. Hundreds of designers were invited to create one-of-a-kind shirts just for this show. Popularity winner goes to this Tee! Photo by Suzanne Jongmans.

Will the festival change Breda? Do you think it was a success?

I hope that the festival contributes to the image of Breda as a city where graphic design is as evident as pubs and carnival. It is a first step, but we have to continue it and set up new projects to develop this image. Judging on the first reactions of visitors and designers I can say we made a good start to set up a solid festival supported by “inter”-national institutions, sponsors and, most importantly, designers. Your interest confirms we did well!

Tokyo, New York, Milano, Breda! You definitely caught our attention! We’ll be keeping our eye on this city…

7 Comments

1. Love the ads with the politicians!
   They’re so wrong it’s laughable now.

   Posted by: Rudianto on July 30th, 2008 at 7:19 pm

2. funny how my love for Japanese art leads me back to a town i spent part of my childhood in. Thanks Pingmag for this interesting trip down memory lane!

   Posted by: venger on July 30th, 2008 at 8:52 pm

3. Wow! I would love to live in such an artistic town like that. :P

   Posted by: Kym on July 31st, 2008 at 3:24 pm

4. [...] Breda: A Dutch Town Gone Graphic Design Crazy Articolo PingMag [...]

   Posted by: Graphic Design Museum « Lieve on July 31st, 2008 at 11:45 pm

5. [...] Up!, via Skism A fake H&M ad featuring controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders. PingMag - Breda: A Dutch Town Gone Graphic Design Crazy August 5th, 2008 / 0 Comments / [...]

   Posted by: now » A fake H&M ad featuring controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders.... on August 6th, 2008 at 2:39 am

6. [...] Breda: A Dutch Town Gone Graphic Design Crazy [Ping Mag] EXCERPT: “A cryptic slash and a splash of copy-shop pastels announced Breda’s first-ever Graphic Design Festival in best DIY style. Design by Rob van Hoesel. Hands down, Dutch design is definitely a bit famous. From: Wim Crouwel to…” [...]

   Posted by: DesignNotes by Michael Surtees » Blog Archive » Link Drop for the Week Ending in Friday the 8th (August 2008) on August 8th, 2008 at 8:07 pm

7. About the t-shirt, check out this link.
   That design was made last year…
   http://barfutura.com/uploads/DSC_0046.jpg

   Posted by: sergio on August 26th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

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