From 3 to 25 June 2017 will be held in Amsterdam the Holland Festival. This is the third edition to be shaped by Amsterdam-based designcollective thonik and Holland Festival, which is now celebrating its 70thanniversary. But neither party wished to take a safe or retrospective approachto this year’s visual voice of Holland’s most important cultural event.“Compared to metropolises like London or New York, Amsterdam is just a village,but thanks to HF it feels grand and happening. We are happy to contribute inour own way to that feeling of greatness,” says Nikki Gonnissen (the woman whoputs the ‘nik’ in thonik). “This year’s theme of democracy is also right up ouralley. I think what links HF and thonik in a very essential way is that we bothfeel that culture is needed to guide social and technological changes.” In collaboration with Ruth Mackenzie,artistic director of Holland Festival and Norbert Bode, marketing manager ofHolland Festival, thonik has pulled out all the stops. “We took a radical approach by using a digital code and taking ourinspiration from the online world instead of the other way around. Normally youwould make a design and then translate it to both print and digital – wedecided to break that habit and use code as a resource.” The code is an idea by Falco van Burg – oneof thonik’s designers – and transforms a website URL into a color spectrum thatnot only looks like a fluid, breathing thing, but actually is. All aspects ofHolland Festival’s identity are created in line with code. The websitetranslates all information into a marbling of color, but this processrepresented a challenge as well. Due to the inversion between print anddigital, thonik was left with low resolution images, typical for the onlineenvironment. Research showed that by zooming in on the spectrum it was possibleto extract stills that were both beautiful and decorative and to translatethese into print. “The code works like amachine that makes particles of data – a hugely democratic process that fitsright into the theme. It links colors together the way people are linkedtogether in a democracy.” “HollandFestival has a tradition of innovation, putting culture front and centre. Notonly by providing a platform for the pinnacle of international performing artsbut also by using culture as a way to communicate with their visitors. For 70years they have used amazing graphic design to create culture.” Due to the novel nature of thonik’s graphicdesign for Holland Festival 2017 the posters will be displayed on digitalscreens in stead of traditional billboards. thonik is the Amsterdam based collective of designers with a speciality in visual communication, graphic identity, interaction- and motion design led by lauded designers Nikki Gonnissen and Thomas Widdershoven. thonik offers their clients a visual voice that sets apart and differentiates: providing pole position. thonik has its roots firmly planted in society, willing to actively engage in the dialogue of what is right and what is fair. More information on thonik’s 3 yearcollaboration with Holland Festival: thonik.nl/work/holland-festival/ thonik.nl/stories/holland-festival-2016/
