No such thing as personal style
The mere idea of a personal style threatens to bring a yawn to the faces of Paul Roeters and Joeroen Hoedjes. The Studio Kluif founders prefaced their talk at the Sri Lanka Design Festival with a quick explanation: “where we come from,” they said “people are very liberal minded.
Paul Roeters
We question authority and we’re constantly looking for ways to challenge what’s accepted. More importantly, we can make fun of ourselves.”
This is why the Dutch design duo are determined to never restrict themselves to a style.
They dislike the idea so much that they wrote a book about it-‘Purists Are Boring’. This is naturally one of the first things we speak about when, during a break from SLDF’s Design Katha on November 29, they sat down for a quick chat with the Sunday Times.
“One of the worst things you can do as a graphic designer is to limit yourself by saying – this is my style,” says Hoedjes. “When you say that you attract only a certain kind of client and your work becomes boring.”
Their presentation at Design Katha was a kaleidoscope of images and film; instead of delivering a talk, the duo went down the visual route, sharing their most prolific projects with the audience. Studio Kluif’s work is bright, punchy, bold-funny in a very tongue-in-cheek kind of way.
Inspiration? Everything. “You can be inspired by almost anything if you’re a good graphic designer,” they say. “Music, books, people, film-anything.”
The duo formed Studio Kluif in 1999- they had met at art school (“we were friends in a minute”) – because they shared similar design ethos. 15 years later, the studio is going strong. Their clients are many.
Despite an extensive client list and very busy schedules, Roeters and Hoedjes make it a point to meet with clients themselves. “When a client talks to an account manager information gets lost,” Roeters explains. “We meet them directly to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Joeroen Hoedjes
It’s like a Chinese whisper game-the more people there are in between you and the client, the more the original idea gets distorted.”
Moreover, it’s important to be verbal. “Sometimes we’re rushing back from a meeting and we’ll look at each other and wish we had more time to design, less need to talk,” laughs Hoedjes.
“But designers usually forget that a big part of design is communicating your idea to people, so you have to be good at talking.”
What have they seen during their time in Sri Lanka? “There is potential for more,” Hoedjes says, cautiously. Roeters added-“We saw some really interesting things on our way here in a tuk.
For example the SLDF billboards that we saw were very striking, and people could feel the difference-they knew something important was happening here. So you have the talent; now people need to think about new ways of exploring graphic design.”
Roeters and Hoedjes were hosted in Sri Lanka by the Netherlands Embassy alongside Daan Roosegarde.
The Sri Lanka Design Festival was held from November 27-29 at the SLECC. The event was conceptualised and founded by the Academy of Design.