ImpactFest 2019 was all about making meaningful connections. The purpose was to talk to each other – entrepreneurs, startups, scale-ups, creatives and anybody who’s interested could sign up for over a 100 ‘roundabout sessions’ where they could discuss new business models, (gender) equality in the workspace, ethical fashion, smart cities, circular economy etc. 

Running up to the day of the event, we created an anonymous character that kept trying to get in contact with you through different social media platforms. It would show you a selection of the topics and invite you to meet each other and talk at ImpactFest.

The topics then we’re shown on ImpactFest itself, projected on veil along the sides of the room where everybody was talking. During the day, the projections got ‘interrupted’ by this anonymous character who would tell you what the discussion is about at a certain table, at what time a particular topic starts at which table and to talk more about some topics.

These texts worked as a program, signage and discussion partner.

Alongside we designed a poster concept for which we used 5 basic layouts which we could personalise and fill with all sorts of content that relate to the topics and the program. For this we have laser cut over 300 stencils to spraypaint, with which every single poster was uniquely made.

And finally, as a big overall gesture, we made a spatial typographic installation (5 x 17 meters) of handmade pallets hanging from the high ceiling, showing the most important goal of the event – making meaningful connections.

‘Goed Geld Salon’ (The Proper Money Parlor) in an initiative that organises meetings about the role and purpose of money in our society with theory, practical alternatives, debate and artistic interventions.

We designed the riso printed flyers for these meetings, and what’s a better way to get your mind on the money game than with money!

The green base layer is pre-printed with all practical (static) information and for each meeting we added the specific info accompanied by a fierce predator in a different colored layer.

For the Chair Group Health & Society (HSO) we designed an info brochure. The brochure contains information about their Research and Education program at the Wageningen University.

Since health and society are reflections of one another, we mirrored some of the the images. Other images are somewhat reflections in themselves with the use of fresh fluor green, looking like fragments from a documentary or film, ‘subtitled’ with quotes from their own research projects.

The cover of the brochure is printed with a silver ink, which contrasts nicely with the green.

The Hague Street Art (THSA) is a well-known street art collective in The Hague, and in 2018 the municipality invited them to transform an old industrial area in The Hague into a ‘street art district’. For over a year, local and foreign artists worked on multiple artworks and ‘pieces’ on various locations raging from power boxes and garages to full murals and even hotel rooms.

After a year THSA asked us to bundle all the artworks into a publication, and create a Street Art Guide of the area.

Even though all the artworks are legally made in broad daylight, our concept for the design came from the thrill, adventure and fun that is surrounded by graffiti artists. Trying to translate this adventurous characteristics with the important element of fun, we chose to show the artworks in the form of a comic book – using the same dimensions, shiny cover and uncoated paper of the comics we used to read as kids.

Since there was off course no storyline, all the individual projects are ranged chronologically as they were made, all of them marked with a location and time as for all of these projects their story starts here. The one anomaly in the story is transformation of the ‘Teleport Hotel’ into a Street Art Hotel, giving the artists the opportunity to paint the lobby, hotel rooms, their garage etc. This project started earlier in 2017 and is still on-going, so by using flash backs and flash forwards we fit this project into the story by using the language and characteristics of comics.

And of course as any good comic book story, this project is to be continued…