Dutch Design is a term used to denote an informal artistic school of

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, particularly

product design Product design as a verb is to create a new product to be sold by a business to its customers. A very broad coefficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products. Thus, it is a major aspect of n ...

. More specifically, the term refers to the design esthetic common to designers in the Netherlands.

History

The Netherlands were primarily known for

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

until the 1980s, when the term Dutch Design started to come into popular use. The term came to be closely identified with a group of Dutch product designers who have gained international recognition particularly from the 1990s onwards. These include

Maarten Baas Maarten Baas (; born 19 February 1978) is a Dutch furniture designer. He is known for his Real Time series of clocks in which people paint the time by hand. His career path was influenced by mentors like Jurgen Bey, colleagues like Bertjan Pot ...

, Jurgen Bey,

Richard Hutten Richard G. J. Hutten (born 30 March 1967, in Zwollerkerspel) is a Dutch industrial designer, art director, and artist who is active in furniture design, product design, interior design, and exhibition design. Biography Hutten graduating from t ...

Hella Jongerius Hella Jongerius (born 30 May 1963 in De Meern, Utrecht) is a Dutch industrial designer. Biography Jongerius was born in De Meern, a village to the west of Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1963. From 1988 to 1993, she studied design at the Design ...

, Wieki Somers,

Hester van Eeghen Hester van Eeghen (11 November 1958 – 8 April 2021) was a Dutch designer of leather bags, wallets and accessories. Life Hester van Eeghen was born in Amsterdam, the youngest of five children. Her family has been involved in the arts in The Net ...

and

Marcel Wanders Marcel Wanders (2 July 1963) is a Dutch designer, and art director in the Marcel Wanders studio in Amsterdam, who designs architectural, interior and industrial projects. Life Born in Boxtel, Wanders graduated Latin honors, cum laude from the ...

, as well as internationally recognized design firms and collectives like

Droog Droog may refer to: * Droog, a ''Nadsat'' slang term for "friend" in Anthony Burgess's novel ''A Clockwork Orange'' and the Stanley Kubrick film adaptation * The Droogs, a United States rock group named after the Nadsat term * The Droogs (renamed ...

and

Moooi Moooi is a Dutch furniture, interior, and lighting modern design company. It was founded by Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers in the Netherlands in 2001. Name and stated mission When Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers started Moooi in 2001, t ...

which helped gain prominence for Dutch designers at major design events such as the

Salone del Mobile The Milan Furniture Fair ( it, Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano) is a furniture fair held annually in Milan. It is the largest trade fair of its kind in the world. The exhibition showcases the latest in furniture and design from countrie ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. More broadly, the term could be extended to fashion designers such as

Viktor & Rolf Viktor & Rolf is a Dutch avant-garde luxury fashion house founded in 1993 by Viktor Horsting (born 1969, Geldrop) and Rolf Snoeren (born 1969, Dongen). For more than twenty years, Viktor & Rolf have sought to challenge preconceptions of fashion an ...

and architects such as

Rem Koolhaas Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a re ...

and

Francine Houben Francine Marie Jeanne Houben (; born 2 July 1955)Francine Houben, Architect/Urbanist ...

. The emergence of an internationally recognized Dutch design scene has been fueled by a strong educational system for designers. The

Design Academy Eindhoven Design Academy Eindhoven is an interdisciplinary educational institute for art, architecture and design in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The work of its faculty and alumni have brought it international recognition, and is widely regarded as one of the w ...

has produced many well-known designers. In a 2003 article in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', Murray Moss, the owner of Moss, a design store in Manhattan, called it "without question, currently the best design academy in the world." Another well-known school is

Gerrit Rietveld Academie The Gerrit Rietveld Academie, also known as Rietveld School of Art & Design and Rietveld Academy, is an art academy in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The academy was founded in 1924 and offers programs in fine arts and design. History In 1924, the I ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

. A second contributing factor to the success of Dutch design is government support for new designers. Financial support from the Fonds BKVB (the Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture), launched in 1988, has enabled design students to set themselves up as independent entrepreneurs right after graduation. Also playing an important role is the fact that design has become an integral part of product development in the Netherlands. Designers are included in the earliest phases of innovative processes and the production development cycle. The Dutch electronics company

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

, for instance, has around 450 people working on design at 12 offices around the world. The

Dutch Design Awards Dutch Design Awards (DDA) honours the best Dutch designs across eight categories. It awards design initiatives and designers in the Netherlands each year, in first place by relevance and impact, but also to the extent to which they relate to thei ...

are awarded annually during

Dutch Design Week Dutch Design Week (also known as DDW) is the largest annual design event in Northern Europe. It presents work and concepts from more than 2,600 designers to more than 355,000 visitors from home and abroad. Hosted in Eindhoven, Netherlands, the ev ...

in Eindhoven.

Reception

Dutch Design has been characterized as minimalist, experimental, innovative, quirky, and humorous. "Dutch design is simple and powerful", according to Hugo van den Bos, strategy director of Dutch graphic design studio Koeweiden Postma. Author and journalist Tracy Metz notes that, "The Dutch have the ability to make fun of themselves. Also it's a matter of combining things that usually don't combine at all. Dutch designers are good in using materials that look worthless. The designers give them a new value."

Events

Annual events

*Dutch Design Week (Eindhoven), including the Dutch Design Awards

Past events

* Dutch Design Double (Amsterdam/Utrecht, 2009) * Dutch Design Expo @ Shanghai International Creative Industry Week (Shanghai, 2008) * Dutch Design Days (Belgium, 2008) * Orange Alert (New York City, 2005) * Via Milano New Dutch Design (Amsterdam),

References

External links

{{commons category, Design of the Netherlands
Dutch Design Awards