me studio

a new book (see ‘forthcoming’) documenting the career of the man responsible for the most beautiful (and now defunct) banknotes ever made: ootje oxenaar, the book will be launched at the ‘stedelijk museum’ in late june with a series of lectures, i was introduced to him several years back and found him to be a very friendly and open person

…the role played by R.D.E. (’Ootje’) Oxenaar in the development of Dutch graphic design is a fascinating one. In 1970 he joined the Department of Art and Design at what was then the Dutch Postal and Telecommunications Service (PTT). He was deputy head from then until 1976, when he took over as head of the department until 1994. It would be hard to overstate his importance as one of the key public principals of Dutch graphic design in those years. That success can be attributed to Oxenaar’s own visual production from the early 1950s onward, and the position this earned him in the design field as a front-rank graphic designer…