Room to play


Ruimte voor de spelende mens (Room to play) presents The Hague’s dream to become a utopian city based on artist Constant Nieuwenhuys’ New Babylon. Here the city is an environment where its inhabitants can focus solely on their creativity and exist as homo ludens, ‘playing man’.

This financial report documents the cultural budget distribution across the many institutions in The Hague. The document details the government’s spending for the following four years in comparison to previous.

Fulfilling the city’s dream, the design of the report actually gives the reader the opportunity to play. The content is divided into seven books which form a tangram puzzle. ‘Alles moet mogelijk blijven, alles moet kunnen gebeuren’ (Everything must remain possible, everything can happen), the report’s ethos, is emphasised through the tangram’s ability to form infinite combinations.

As a tangram puzzle the previously dry and complex document is transformed into one of creativity and joy. Additionally, the shapes of the tangram become an abstraction of The Hague’s visual identity of which the report is designed within.

The real deal


The cover of this book is turned inside out. The design is inside and the endpapers are outside. Het Echte Werk is not printed in regular CMYK. Given the subject of experimentation, cyan, magenta and yellow are replaced by neon PMS inks. However, the book is still printed as normal CMYK printwork giving a completely surprising result and making the photos ‘pop’ with vibrancy.

F.C. de Omslag is a collaboration between the library and archives of Gouda. This initiative was set up to explore and experiment how they, together with the inhabitants of Gouda, can create culture. The book is an adventure into dealing with culture in a new experimental way.

‘De Omslag’ means ‘book cover’ and refers to both the books in the library and the archive. Yet, it also means ‘turning point’, which the team believes this project could mean for them. This is the reason behind the cover being such a focal point. Turning it inside out makes you look twice and that is what F.C. de Omslag is about.


Trapped in Suburbia award

Silver | 2014 European Design Awards | Book Cover
Finalist | 2014 European Design Awards | Book Layout