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It is our mission to unite the most important Dutch voices in the field of design and to help ensure that their diverse views on design reach a wider audience.

It is our vision that the design community brings a unique and specific perspective to the important themes of our society.

Dutch Design Daily, ten years of 24-hour-a-day celebration

Interview by Viveka van de Vliet

Dutch Design Daily (DDD) is celebrating its tenth anniversary. This is special, because on this approachable, clear online platform, as the title suggests, a new topical topic in the field of Dutch Design has been highlighted every day for another ten years. “A designer can then celebrate his own party here for a day only to make way for someone else 24 hours later,” says Robert van Rixtel, one of the founders. On Dutch Design Daily, well-known creatives but also hidden design gems and young talents are given a stage. There is a focus on education and heritage, scoops and interviews within all colours of the design palette: graphic design, digital design, fashion & textiles, all forms of design, spatial design, architecture and photography.

Each ‘daily’ consists of an image and a short text, along the lines of the tear-off calendar, from which you tear off a page each day so that you get to see something new 365 times a year.

Dutch Design Daily

In 1991, graphic designers Eric van Casteren and Robert van Rixtel founded [Z]OO producties, a small-scale publishing company through which they self-published publications on the design profession and organised symposia, exhibitions and meetings.

The idea to start Dutch Design Daily came logically from the activities of [Z]OO producties. Instead of through print, stories about Dutch designers are now distributed online. Faster and cheaper, and with a much wider reach.

Originally, the board of Dutch Design Daily was formed by Eric van Casteren, Eric Hesen, Rob Huisman, Juultje van der Put, Robert van Rixtel and Titus Yocarini.

From 2019 onwards, Robert and his wife Juultje continued together. They knew each other from the Design Academy, where Robert taught from 1994 and Juultje graduated. From their home in Eindhoven, they combined raising their two children with commercial assignments and in-house initiatives.

Juultje van der Put and Robert van Rixtel, photo: Aatjan Renders

When Dutch Design Daily started in 2014, there were many smaller initiatives, each with its own platform and underlying organisation, in addition to the major professional organisations such as BNO, Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Stimuleringsfonds and the Dutch Design Foundation. The creative field was fragmented, everyone was on their own island and information could be found in many places.

“At the time, we wanted to bring together the scattered supply of valuable Dutch designer initiatives and thus make the great versatility of creativity visible,” Robert and Juultje now say. The Netherlands lacked one central platform for the online promotion of Dutch design where independent designer initiatives could go and could be found.

Over the years, there had been more attempts to form a similar platform, but many initiatives failed, sometimes within a year, because it is time-consuming work and there is often no revenue model. But ten years on, the passionate mission of Robert van Rixtel and Juultje van der Put is undiminished.

So Robert and Juultje are doing what nobody did. For ten years, 365 days a year, they have been the driving force behind the non-stop formula. “We do it because it’s fun and because it meets a need,” they say, now helped by a committed group of ‘we-thinkers’, people who strive for knowledge transfer, meeting and mutual cooperation from the common interest of Dutch design and the design community.

Together we are stronger

With this sympathetic idealistic initiative, they have not only built brand awareness and a lively community but also a lot of goodwill. Dutch designers, organisations and institutions, festivals and museums that want to show a new project, product or activity to the world, and design professionals such as designers, students, bloggers, gallery owners, museum curators, cultural ambassadors and the international design press know how to find this platform and each other on it.

Juultje: “We look carefully around us, searching and selecting, but the community also feeds us. We have gathered around us a group of like-minded people who scout and contribute, more than 50 community members, each with their own expertise, and many organisations including GLUE, Graphic Matters, MaterialDistrict, FashionClash and Social Label, to name just a few. Creatives themselves also know how to find us well because they find DDD likeable, relevant and feel closely involved. This way, we develop a lot of strenght together with our supporters. Together you are stronger.”

Thus, DDD now constitutes a comprehensive library (KB, the national library, has digitally archived the website). DDD is both a filing cabinet full of treasures containing the recent history of Dutch design and a lively platform that sits on top of current affairs like a daily newspaper. The new website as a gift for the birthday of Dutch Design Daily has been realised with the help of many contributions from community members. This allows Dutch Design Daily to take professional steps forward.

“We can become even more decisive, engage new parties, generate more varied content and bring depth by offering opinion pieces, longreads, videos and podcasts in addition to the well-known daily’s, interviews, columns, themes and theme weeks,” they say. That it means even more work, they agree wholeheartedly.