Meeusontwerpt

What is the story of your studio ? Being twin sisters our ‘collaboration’ already started when we were very young. As children we were drawing, writing, making comics together. We were each others public, teacher, student, jury, customer, third eye, client etc. – everything in shifting roles. Later on we separated our ways on purpose (Hilde studied literature in Groningen, Janna Graphic design in Breda and Arnhem), just to find ourselves working together in a studio years later (since 2008 we work together as Meeusontwerpt), doing again what we did as kids.

Beyond graphic design, you studied literature and typography. How does it influence your daily work ? How does your collaboration as a duet work ? Coming from different backgrounds (Hilde studied Dutch literature and after that Graphic Design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, Janna studied Graphic Design at St Joost, Breda and at the Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem) gives us shifts in certain directions. We each have our own specialisation/interests. For Janna this has to do with the objects and solutions, experimenting with printing, folding – finding smart combinations. For Hilde this has to do with being inspired by philosophers, writers, poets – making things from language. Quickly said you could say that Janna is the do-er and Hilde the think-er, but of course that’s just a simplification and in practice it works more mixed.

We noticed that you made several conferences, workshops and activities with children. Which part of your experience do you like to share with others? Would you feel at ease as a teacher ? The longer we spend ‘away from school’, the more we miss that environment, where questions are raised, borders explored, where there is time and space for research. Last year we took an intern in our studio for the first time. Not for the more standard reasons (because of the amount of work, as an extra labour-force), but because we wanted to open a dialogue and because we really liked and recognised ourselves in her work (She is called Stien Stessens, and she is from Belgium: http://www.sssssttieeenn.be/). Also often when we give a talk we have the feeling we learned something, things became clearer, but mostly it opens up an extra space, a parallel universe that puts everything in another kind of value – more autonomous then in the daily life. So for egoistic reasons we like to teach, yes.

Have you particular rules that you always follow in your practice of editorial design ? And particular inspirations/role models ? In each project we develop many rules, maybe too much – and sometimes we try to get rid of a few. We used to always be very strict in designing book-covers, we felt that the cover really had to come from the inside of the book – it had to reflect the structure/rules/content of the inside. Now we sometimes want to be more free. But still we rely on rules to be able to play the game. And of course we have each our own ‘voices in our head’ – these abstract ghosts that are there and that speak to us – mostly derived from teachers that we used to have (Linda van Deursen, Armand Mevis, Karel Martens, Experimental Jetset, Richard Niessen, Roger Willems), like an invisible public. Beside colleague designers we are inspired by certain writers, artists, researchers, newspapers, bookbinders. It’s always nice to read/see something and feel that it speaks to you, that you are connected, hearing it. Interview conducted in May 2016 ©ktlg