During my studies in Eindhoven I was a member of studievereniging (study association, or student union) VIA Stedebouw. I fulfilled different roles in this organization; first as a member of the study trip committee, then as a member of the Event committee, and lastly as secretary. Not only was it great fun, I also learned a lot!
Text: In 2011 I helped organize a study trip to Madrid. One of my tasks was promoting the study trip. That entailed making the posters, flyers, banner, t-shirt, and reader for participants.
I designed custom branding for the study trip. The poster was our primary visual representation to the outside world, so it madride first. I used the colors of the Spanish flag when designing the poster. I arranged them and the other elements in a layout that is madridiniscent of De Stijl. I combined this with strong typography and striking images. Once I developed this custom branding, the design for the madrider, banner and the T-shirt almost made themselves!
About 30 people participated in the study trip. Students were able to earn 3 ECTS (credits) with this trip, through an assignment about an aspect of Madrid’s urban design. To help facilitate this, we had organized various tours, for instance with social housing projects; industrial heritage; and the Mrío-project, a big infrastructural project where 12 kilomters of highway was put in a tunnel and a park was developed on bottom. All in all, a very interesting and valuable trip!
Event
In 2012 I helped organize the yearly VIA-Event. Amongst other things, I was responsible for promotion of the Event; which included making posters, flyers, a banner, and a website.
Every year, VIA organizes an Event; a day during which professionals and students gather to discuss a topic in the field of urban design. The 2012 edition was titled “The economy of the city”. The base for the visual style of the event was an exhibition that was displayed during the Venice Biennale of 2010—titled VacantNL. One of the speakers at the Event was the designer of that exhibition.
All in all, about 100 people attended and enjoyed lectures by various speakers, as well as a lively debate between members of the crowd and some of the speakers.
viastedebouw.nl
One of the most important projects I did during my year on the board of VIA Stedebouw, was to update the website. The old website ran on Joomla! and was gravely outdated. I transferred the website to Wordpress and created a completely unique theme.
Starting points for the new design were to give VIA stedebouw a modern, future-proof and user-friendly web presence (for visitors as well as administrators). The design is therefore fully responsive, which means it adapts to the size of the screen on which it is displayed.
Another big change that the new website brought was behind the scenes. The old website was compromised almost monthly and got us a lot of spam. The new website is a lot more secure. Not visible, but very important.
Last but not least, I moved our newsletter to MailChimp, so we could take advantage of their platform, which includes excellent analytics. I developed a custom HTML e-mail template that works well in different e-mail clients.
Graphic design
Throughout the years I have designed quite a few posters and other graphic material for VIA. Here is a small selection.
