Wim Crouwel – What Makes Him Go?

I found out at his recent lecture at the Royal College of Physicians.

Firstly, I have to say what great shape he's in considering that the chap is 81. And quite a gentleman too. The tall, silver haired dutch design legend talked about his hugely influential work while being entertaining and free from ego. Even referring to his famous 'new alphabet' font as being unreadable. I came across it when Saint Peter applied it to the front cover of Joy Division's 'Substance'. And it looked like the future, or how I imagined it might be. What was in the water in the 1960's? As we know, the invention and creativity was incredible which still resonates today.



And despite creating illegible fonts, he was an advocate of readability and functional design. And he loves a grid system, so much so he was nicknamed 'Gridnik'. Inspired by Bauhaus and swiss design, he was buzzing when he discovered the font Akzidenz Grotesk (Helvetica's Big Daddy) telling us that it was unavailable in the Netherlands, so he would cut it out from magazines. On the way, he tipped his hat to Univers and Fruitger, to finally exclaim, "I like the Gill". In a dutch accent.



Working on macs makes the design process so easy for us today. I marvelled at how on earth Wim created his work. Just take a look at his posters for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, which are a triumph of simplicity of structure, colour and modernist typography. Each of these projects fed directly from an encouraging yet honest relationship with the client, who once remarked, "Gridnik – this is automatic". Wim favoured strong criticism at the conclusion of a project, enabling you to "keep your lessons" for the next job.

Studio had the pleasure of meeting the man afterwards in the Dorchester Library. Introducing ourselves as first generation mac designers, he surprised us again when he told us that he had been designing on macs since 1993. I was cheeky enough to ask whether he would speak at NUCA – but his lectures are rare. But he did have this pearl of wisdom - if a school has good architecture – something good will come out. For sure.

And to answer the question – "System and grids make me GO". What a superb evening.



Secret squirrel photos by Jason Hyde. More info on Wim Crouwel this way.