• Index Passport – Cataloged Indexes from 500 to 1950

    INDEX PASSPORT Important developments and typographic-index innovations throughout history and an overview of homogeneous/heterogeneous index text-images are collected in an index catalog. The extended index passport, which contains an overview of 128 selected index designs throughout history (500-1950) with specific index design parameters, is made to see innovative turning points and developments in typography. As a result, a matrix was made to compare all index design parameters per category to make the developments better visible. The design and indexes of the catalog themselves are based on the results of the index design, which features an overview of case studies. The most interesting and defining time periods contain: - the first indexes that appeared (1230, in print around 1450) - the indexes that developed in the 'typographic golden age' with the first innovations in print (±1470–1540) - the reflections in indexes of changes that occurred in information retrieval in the Age of Enlightenment (±1700–1800) Through the research strategy of using a multiple-case study design, it became possible to gain an in-depth understanding of specific (proto-)typography and index features that were innovative throughout history. Multiple cases were already compared and contrasted in categories to identify patterns and commonalities in the index passport catalog. It is also a longitudinal case design; multiple cases are studied over an extended period to understand how factors develop over time.
    Imagery: 1499 Terrence's Comoediae (Digital Library of Wrocław), 1450-1459 Biblica – Petri de Rosenheym (University Library Gent), 1472 De civitate Dei-Epigrammata in S. Maximinum – Jacobus de Stephelt (University Library Gent), ±1473 Astrologische tractaten in het Latijn – commissioned by Raphael de Mercatellis (University Library Gent), End 15th century Epistolae-Tabula – Bernardus van Clairvaux (University Library Gent), 1578 Historia siue descriptio plantarum omnium, tam domesticarum quam exoticarum_Leonhard zum Thurn – Michael Hentzske (Allard Pierson Amsterdam), 1644 Tristani Chalci Mediolanensis historiographi – Joannis Petri (Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience Antwerp), 1746-1748 Dictionnaire universel de médecine, de chirurgie, de chymie, de botanique, d'anatomie, de pharmacie, d'histoire naturelle, Volume 1 – Diderot (University Library Utrecht)
    TIMELINE Running from 3000 BCE to 2024, a timeline is gathered and designed to track the main historical developments of the book, with a specific focus on the evolving usability of index design, including index-typography and other (proto-)typographic access structures, until index standardization and convention settled around 1900. This timeline is intricately linked with the "index passport" — a curated catalog featuring noteworthy indexes from various periods, showcasing their innovativeness in facilitating effective search reading. These indexes exemplify unique systems, novel typographic design elements, alternative approaches to presenting book content, shifts in reading requirements, and changes in reader expectations.
    The catalog is an ongoing project which is part of the PhD research. It will go in print around January 2024, a digital version will be published around February 2024.
    The PhD project is made possible by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen – FWO 1146822N With special thanks to Allard Pierson Amsterdam (Special Collections), University Library Gent (Special Collections), Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience Antwerp (Special Collections), University Library Utrecht (Special Collections), National Library of The Hague (Special Collections).
  • LIBRARY OF EXPERIMENTS 1 – Pocket overview of mosses in Great Britain

    This little RISO pocket booklet is a result of experimental design and test outcomes. 151 respondents (among them 132 students) were asked to chose their design preferences in fonts, titles, subtitles, illustrations, orientation, grid system, alignment, line demarcations, the format/ proportions of the reading materials and the combinations of both, among other questions (84 in total!).

    The front side of the booklet is printed in the RISO colours fluor pink, yellow and blue on Metapaper extra rough. The backside is printed in the colour hunter green on a Bio Top paper. 
The combination and mixture of transparency in the colours give the images of the mosses a unique green palette. The variety of lower- and high-resolution (digital) photographs are an input for the (analogue) RISO duplicator that has a typical raster that provides an imprint and gives the mosses an extra structure.

    Printed by De Kijm, The Hague 

    Mosses overview poster
    Mosses overview booklet
    Mosses overview leprello
    Mosses overview folded booklet

  • FORMAT. Changing Attitudes – Z33

    For the graphic design of the campaign and catalogue of the exhibition Format, Janneke Janssen started off with the title and subtitle of the exhibition, Changing Attitudes. She designed one ‘blue print’ that contains the total design of the campaign, which can be de-constructed and reformed by recycling its parts, keeping the same ratio’s. The implications of using a Riso duplicator, its limitation of two colours and folding and cutting the material, led to a process-based design methodology. The material and the design is used as a changing platform that can be divided or contracted and expanded. The publication contains sketches of the laureates projects and gives an inside into their (changing) attitudes towards design- and thinking processes. By giving inside into the process next to the final exhibited projects, the visitors’ perspective on the work and discern can be changed too, while looking, exploring and moving through the exhibition and the book from one point to the other. As an extra contextual and narrative layer in the book and exhibition, augmented reality is applied. Design and architecture are anything but gratuitous. The new edition of FORMAT centres on this crucial insight. The laureates of the group exhibition are adopting an almost activist approach at Z33. With ground-breaking concepts, they challenge visitors to reflect on news, fashion, microbial clouds, herbal medicine, residual space, artificial intelligence, weaving techniques, ruins and radio masts. To this end, they have forged alliances with experts both within and outside their fields and they challenge us to rethink the classical methods of design. Laureates: Cream on Chrome (Martina Huynh & Jonas Nepomuk), Lukas Claessens, Amandine David, Matthijs De Block, Sophia Holst, Legrand Jäger (Guillemette Legrand & Eva Jäger), Flora Miranda, Inès Leverrier Péborde, Bert Villa Graphic design: Janneke Janssen Scenography: Bram Vanderbeke Curator: Heleen Van Loon Photo's: Selma Gurbuz FORMAT is the coaching trajectory organized by Z33 for new and promising talent working in design and architecture. Every year, several designers are given the opportunity to enhance their artistic practice and to share knowledge and networks with one another. After a year of intensive coaching, all the designs are brought together in a group exhibition. Time and space are essential components of this learning process, enabling the participants to explore boundaries and unconventional approaches. Z33 is a refuge where free experimentation, learning and failing come together. Group exhibition 15.9 - 24.11.2019 www.z33.be
  • Public Secrets – An Architecture of Limburg’s Visual Culture – Bureau Europa

    Public Secrets - An Architecture of Limburg’s Visual Culture

    29 August – 6 October 2019
    You know it. I know it. They know it too. And should anyone ask about it, then we know nothing. Everyone knows a public secret, but nobody officially knows. Our region’s visual culture is also such a public secret. What are the specific images with which we identify? The group exhibition Public Secrets provides the first impetus for a sample of this region’s current visual culture. Image, imaging, and image culture have a relationship to, even an unprecedented grip on, our Self-image.
    You know it. I know it. They know it too. And should anyone ask about it, then we know nothing. Everyone knows a public secret, but nobody officially knows. Our region’s visual culture is also such a public secret. What are the specific images with which we identify? The group exhibition Public Secrets provides the first impetus for a sample of this region’s current visual culture. Image, imaging, and image culture have a relationship to, even an unprecedented grip on, our Self-image. Public Secrets also alludes to Bureau Europa. Architecture is solidified history. Architecture primarily provides protection and also gives cultural expression to the prevailing Zeitgeist. We recognise our Self in our surroundings – it is our house, street, city, and region with which we identify. However, from the city to the landscape, we are not always aware of the codes and power structures, visual or otherwise (e.g. material, religion, cultural, gender, different ethnic backgrounds), embedded in our designed environment. Time and again, Bureau Europa has addressed such ‘public secrets’ through thematising, from an international perspective, issues concerning our regional visual culture. Ken Knabb This exhibition was originally inspired by American author Ken Knabb’s writings on the Situationist International, which was the first counterculture he focused on. He has since unswervingly been interested in countercultures, be it the 1960s hippie counter culture or the 2011 Occupy movement. Situationist International was an influential avant-garde artists’ movement, founded by Guy Debord in Paris in 1955. Its central concepts are detournement and dérive, or the ‘science of wandering’: experiencing the city around you differently through your imagination. The idea of psychogeography, which examines the effect our surroundings have on our emotions and behaviour, was also important for the Situationist International. This exhibition presents inspiring associative maps, alternative walks, and tilted perspectives. Artists Sara Bachour with Gladys Zeevaarders, Dear Hunter, Chris Keulen, Janneke Janssen, Tineke Kambier, Chaim van Luit, George Meijers, Tanja Ritterbex, Johannes Schwarz, Nic.Tummers, Michiel Ubels & Mike Moonen, and Kim Zwarts. Special guest: Ken Knabb Curators & text: Lene ter Haar and Saskia van Stein, director Bureau Europa Graphic identity: Janneke Janssen Opening: 29 August 17.00 to 19.00 Dates: 29 August to 6 October 2019 Location: Bureau Europa, a platform for architecture and design
  • Theatre posters and flyers

    Throughout the years I worked for different theater productions and helped them with their design, like Het Huis van Bourgondië, T.G. Ilay, Gotra and Suikerwolf
  • Hedah – Centre for contemporary arts in Maastricht

    During my time as a board member of Hedah foundation, centre for contemporary arts Maastrich, I worked on diverse projects; the programming of several exhibitions, work visits with artists, the self-initiated two-weekly film programme, collaborations with the Jan Van Eyck Academy (Matt Mullican), the Academy of Fine Arts Maastricht and other art schools (Colabs series). Hedah’s filmprogramme was a collaborative project of Hedah, B32 and the Jan van Eyck Academy. Amongst others I organised and curated film screenings every two weeks on Wednesdays or Thursdays. We screened films, video’s, shorts, Youtube compilations and documentaries that went beyond the mainstream commercial offers of the traditional movie theatres in Maastricht. Also, we programmed present audio-visual artworks/projects of young and emerging artists. Colabs was a collaborative exchange project between fine art students from Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands. Aïscha Berg (former board member of Hedah) and I made a plan for this one’s-a-year event (Hedah organised it for three years in a row, now Marres took it over). Three groups consisting of four participants from various academies worked at Hedah for a period of two weeks. Different artists and curators visited each group to give feedback and stimulate dialogue. This project has been developed out of the structural collaboration between Hedah and the Fine Art Academy Maastricht, department Fine Arts. According to the participants wish to not only exchange works and exhibit together, but to actually work with each other. Working at Hedah was considered more of an experimental situation instead of pushing an exhibition, even though a working period might eventually result in an exhibition. As a graphic designer I made hedah’s last visual identity, for some of the events the posters, flyers and the yearbooks. The logo of Hedah provides a clear and sober image, in which it consists of a block pattern. A Helvetica Bold character in each block is forming the logo. Through the use of color and the ability to move the blocks and place them in a corner shape, it makes the dynamic logo more playful. From the logo the corporate identity has been established, repetitions of the logo and the variability of this creates patterns which may vary by application. The invitations are made out of text bars. On the basis of the text (name / title / location), the size of the text bar is determined, the ratio (height) of the beams depends on the text, so that the text becomes an image. All this within the given square that has been filtrated from the logo. During the time the posters and flyers design evolved to a more photographic approach. It shows a detail or an item that is presented in the show, lecture, archive performance or screening. Furthermore, sometimes I was occupied with public relations and maintaining and building of Hedah’s website, Facebook, newsletters and correspondence.