Roots cahier #70 Piet Gerards, written by Ben van Melick, was published on 12 December 2025. The presentation took place at Huis van het Boek, The Hague.
‘No idea,’ says Piet Gerards when asked about the size of his body of work. His archive is currently held at the National Library in The Hague, where Huis van het Boek is organising and cataloguing it. At the start of 2025, the count for books alone was over 900, ‘with another three linear metres still to go’. Posters, invitations, brochures, postage stamps, coins, calendars, visual identities, annual reports and occasional printed matter are still waiting to be processed.
Ben van MelickDonald Janssen, Arja van den Berg and Piet GerardsMartin Majoor and Piet Gerards
Christopher Brawn about ‘Werktitel: Piet Gerards, grafisch ontwerper’ in Eye Magazine (2004) ‘The book presents an enviable portfolio, spanning 30 years and representing an A to Z of typographic styles and applications. […] Before discovering this book I was completely unaware of Gerards. It’s an unfortunate reflection, perhaps, of the values that the design community celebrates today that a quiet, considered, subtle talent like Gerards can go unnoticed for so long. What this book represents is the work of an endangered species, a designer who truly understands the meaning of form and content. Granted, the qualities Gerards’ work displays aren’t fashionable in today’s design community, but current practitioners could do far worse than pick up a few lessons from his exemplary career.’
Piet Gerards at the start of his career (1973)At the start of 1995, the presentation of the compact disc containing recordings of the concerts held during the event took place at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam.In the famous Glaspaleis by architect Frits Peutz in Heerlen, the final event of the project ‘John Hejduk. Fabriceren in je hoofd’ took place in autumn 2001.In the Huis Clos publication Complot rond een vierkant (2010), introduced by Frederike Huygen, involved graphic designers describe their contributions to the renowned Rosbeek Goodwill series.Dat is architectuur (2001), 010 Publishers, RotterdamIn the photo, from left to right Arthur Lehning, Johny Lenaerts and Piet Gerards (Amsterdam, 1979), photo: Joep SchreursAlmost 70 books were published by Huis Clos between 1986 and 2017. The four books shown illustrate the fascination of Gerards and his publishing partners with theatre, jazz and poetry.They date from 2008, 2012, 2013 and 2013.Piet Gerards, Jasia Reichardt and Gustaaf Begas (who took the photo) preparing an exhibition in London (1998)Large monographs on Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, created in 2019 and 2023 for the Themerson ArchiveWorking Title: Piet Gerards, graphic designer (010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 2003). Front and back are literally reversed: the blurb is placed on the front.‘UNESCO World Heritage in the Netherlands’ is the theme of a stamp sheet that appeared in 2014Ubu To You, from the same publisher and edited by Jasia Reichardt, appeared in 2024. Shown is the unfolded case containing the two-volume work.
