UMF & Etapes Internacional # 9 / 2007

EDITORIAL
It’s a given, and every graphic designer soon comes to terms with it: design derives from the culture in which it is produced and which it helps foster. The history of countries’ art, ideas and industry has fashioned each of them into a design nation. Or not. While a design’s value is measured in the light of its author’s qualities and the relevance of his/her response, the above factor largely determines its essence. In some cases, design stems from self: in others, it seems doomed to be strange or invisible. Here, it must convince people of its utility; there, it must shed it.
The Netherlands belongs to the latter category. Design is expected, encouraged and honoured there (in 2006, Pierre Bernard and Reza Abedini were awarded prizes worth €150,000 and €100,000 respectively). The reason for such consideration is not graphic design for its own sake, but graphic design that is integrated in its cultural and social context, called to fulfil its rightful role. A role in communicating, of course, but also in making sense of its era; in exploring it, and giving it a tone. The Netherlands knows how to contemplate itself in its graphic design. It is to this end that Dutch graphic design is making great strides forward, cultivating its typographic heritage and nurturing its avant-gardes, their edges honed further with every new creation. On 12 May 2007, the posters for the Holland Festival by Maureen Mooren and Daniël van der Velden (see page 64) were awarded first prize at the international poster and graphic arts festival in Chaumont, France. Over the festival’s past two seasons, these designers have departed from a feeling of national conviction and addressed the questionmarks over the Dutch social model, its values and openness. They ask how to run a federating event during an identity crisis – and for what purpose. Not by denying the crisis, certainly. Their posters, in the forms they take, are manifestos.
It is a time for therapy and self-critique. If a remedy is needed, then their winning images, rather than a medicine’s instructions for use, will do the trick.

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Revolution Dingbats & Motion Dingbats project.
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