Dutch Design Daily

1 / 6

By

By

By

By

By

By
Mary Hessing www.woth.co

The logo

By 30-08-2016

ONE WEEK ABOUT WOTH Wonderful Things Magazine by Mary Hessing

WOTH began as a series of small booklets about the ideas of designers and creatives. This series which was called ‘Ways of thinking’ had it had a logo by Steffen Maas. That was really a great logo – clear but with a twist. However, I thought that for the magazine we needed something else. That’s why I asked Gert Dumbar, a very good friend, to think about something new.

Actually, to find the best people to work with is never a real problem but more of a voyage of discovery. You just have to overcome your own inhibitions and engage in a firm conversation with critical professionals. A few years ago, when I wanted to restyle Eigen Huis & Interieur, we went to Pentagram New York. In my eyes, they are the very best in the world in the field of magazine design. That’s why I am still proud of what we achieved through this cooperation (and the awards we took home with us). With WOTH Wonderful Things Magazine we were back to square one and we started at our kitchen table with Gert Dumbar (1940), who usually starts fooling around with our girls, but always contributes to a cheerful atmosphere in our house.

Gert Dumbar is founder of Studio Dumbar and used to be a major driving force of Dutch Design. Striking piece of information: one of the first house styles he designed in 1964 – the one for the NS (Dutch Railways) – still exists. Also the one for the police and several other house styles are still used. There are not many graphic designers with such stature when it comes to things that actually work.

For the occasion, Dumbar had brought with him a talented KABK (Royal Academy of Art The Hague) student. Together they presented the ‘dotted logo’ with its solid typeface: WOTH in black that seems to be perforated. They varied the dots in a number of color schemes, against different backgrounds of interiors on proposed covers. The masthead had also been simulated near magazines racks at AKO and Bruna. It is a typical dumber logo in the way in which the image distances itself from other magazines in the same environment. It took us some time to get used to it and we hung the logo on all kinds of places. A good logo should be strong enough, but it should also be variable to be able to leave a lasting impression. The WOTH logo is provocative, cheerful and can adopt different colors. In addition, it lends a positive charge to the new formula that we had in mind with the magazine.

With the crowdfunding campaign for WOTH Wonderful Things magazine via indiegogo.com, we showcased it for the first time. Everything looked great right away and the responses were unanimously positive. So, we thank you, Gert, for your wonderful contribution to our initiative. You were the first who believed that we could launch a magazine!