Holland Festival 2017

In 2017 Holland Festival celebrated it's 70th anniversary. In this edition we took a radical approach by using a digital code and taking our inspiration from the online world instead of the other way around. Normally you would make a design and then translate it to both print and digital – we decided to break that habit and use code as a resource. The coding turned images and film into colorful abstractions. Online we used this coding on the film clips provided by the theater groups. In print we used stills from these abstracted film clips, on posters, the facades of the theaters and on a tram.

The code works like a machine that makes particles of data – a hugely democratic process that fits right into this years theme of democracy. It links colors together the way people are linked together in a democracy.

The Holland Festival brings the best international performing arts to Amsterdam. And for Dutch graphic design it has always been a major project. In the eighties Holland Festival was shortened to HOLND FSTVL (by Anthon Beeke), then it became HF). We shortened HF further to a ligature, and then took away some more to make it a stencil. This resulted in a new typeface: a combination of stencil and ligatures. This typeface sets the logo, the full name and the program in one graphic language.