To cel­e­brate the 80th birth­day of Wim Crouwel and 20 years Nijhof & Lee Vivid orga­nizes the exhi­bi­tion 80 20 100. 100 works by Crouwel will be on dis­play. For this Vivid gallery made a selec­tion from the superb Crouwel col­lec­tion of Frank Nijhof and Warren Lee. A fully illus­trated cat­a­logue designed by David Quay (*) will accom­pany the exhibition.

The exhi­bi­tion is ded­i­cated to Frank Nijhof who passed away Sep­tem­ber 3rd. Nijhof and Warren Lee had been plan­ning this expo­si­tion and cat­a­logue to cel­e­brate Crouwel’s birth­day and to link that to the 20th anniver­sary of the open­ing of their book­store. That plan had been made all the more poignant with the pass­ing of Nijhof; there­fore, in his memory, the expo­si­tion and the cat­a­logue have been real­ized.
More on Frank Nijhof on Unzipped.

Wim Crouwel, vor­mgev­ers, 1968, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Wim Crouwel

Wim Crouwel is a Dutch designer, artist, pro­fes­sor and museum direc­tor. Born in Gronin­gen in 1928, he arguably is one of the most impor­tant design­ers in Dutch graphic his­tory. Crouwel is still active, pri­mar­ily design­ing major art exhi­bi­tions like the 125 Favourites exhi­bi­tion by the Rem­brandt Asso­ci­a­tion in the van Gogh Museum in Ams­ter­dam also open­ing this month.

Crouwel stud­ied at the Min­erva Acad­emy in Gronin­gen from 1947 to 1949, and then in Ams­ter­dam until 1952. In 1952 he estab­lished his own design bureau; by the end of the 1950s he started a col­lab­o­ra­tion with indus­trial designer Kho Liang Ie. His design for the Benelux Pavil­ion was awarded the Leopold II Prize in 1958.

In 1963 Crouwel was one of the five founders of Total Design. This multi-​disciplinary design bureau was named like this because it was the first in The Nether­lands to deal with every single aspect of design in the broad­est sense of the word. It became a dom­i­nant force in Dutch design, and Crouwel and his col­leagues had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on the national and cul­tural iden­tity of The Nether­lands. Crouwel him­self was respon­si­ble for many of the posters and cat­a­logues of the Van Abbe Museum in Eind­hoven and the Stedelijk Museum in Ams­ter­dam from 1956 till 1982.

Orig­i­nal cover for New Alpha­bet - An Intro­duc­tion For A Pro­grammed Typography

Wim Crouwel has always been fas­ci­nated by grid based design sys­tems, and this is preva­lent through­out his whole œuvre. He went on to apply grid sys­tems to type design and his famous 1967 design New Alpha­bet in par­tic­u­lar; extend­ing the grid to become a matrix within which the char­ac­ters were con­structed. As a result of the restric­tions imposed by the cath­ode ray tube for which they were specif­i­cally designed, they con­sist of only hor­i­zon­tals and verticals.

In 1997 David Quay and Freda Sack’s The Foundry cre­ated Foundry Archi­type 3, The Wim Crouwel Col­lec­tion; dig­i­tiz­ing the three New Alpha­bet weights, as well as alpha­bets for the Fodor Museum (part of the Stedelijk Museum, Ams­ter­dam), and for the Vor­mgev­ers exhi­bi­tion at the Stedelijk Museum, and an alpha­bet orig­i­nally designed for Olivetti. Upon the request of numer­ous users the latter was expanded into the four weight type­face family Foundry Grid­nik which became an instant hit.

From 1972 on Wim Crouwel started teach­ing Indus­trial Design part time at the Delft Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity, and in 1980 he left Total Design to be full time pro­fes­sor. In 1985 he became the direc­tor of the Museum Boi­j­mans van Beunin­gen, Rot­ter­dam and also held the Pri­vate Chair Art and Cul­ture Sci­ences at Eras­mus Uni­ver­sity, Rot­ter­dam (1987–93).

Wim Crouwel’s work is reg­u­larly awarded national and inter­na­tional prizes. Every Dutch cit­i­zen knows his work but often doesn’t real­ize it. Through­out the years Wim Crouwel designed a number of postage stamps; the most well known being the stark number stamps which were first issued in 1976.

Wim Crouwel, Visuele Com­mu­ni­catie Ned­er­land, 1969, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

20 years Nijhof & Lee

Nijhof & Lee new and anti­quar­ian book store was founded by Frank Nijhof and Warren Lee in 1988. The shop is sit­u­ated in the Staal­straat in the his­tor­i­cal centre of Ams­ter­dam. Spe­cial­ized in books on fine art, archi­tec­ture, pho­tog­ra­phy and design the shop has become the spe­cial­ist in the fields of graphic design and typog­ra­phy, with a col­lec­tion of new and anti­quar­ian books unique for the Nether­lands. Nijhof & Lee also car­ries a large col­lec­tion of posters by Dutch graphic design­ers of the second half of the twen­ti­eth century.

The Exhibition

You are cor­dially invited to attend the open­ing of 80 20 100 on Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 11th, at VIVID Gallery in Rot­ter­dam.
The expo­si­tion runs through Novem­ber 23rd.
The printed cat­a­logue con­tains 100 designs by Wim Crouwel and an essay by his long time friend and col­league Ben Bos. It has been designed by David Quay and is avail­able at the exhi­bi­tion, in the Nijhof & Lee shop or through their web­site. A price list is avail­able separately.

VIVID Gallery
William Booth­laan 17a
NL-3012 VH Rot­ter­dam
The Nether­lands
+31 [0] 10 4136321
Open­ing hours | Tues­day – Sunday, 12 am – 6 pm

Header image: Wim Crouwel, VIVID exhi­bi­tion Wim Crouwel Fonts, 2002