Sketches #4

Hansje van Halem (1978) studied graphic design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where she set up her own studio in 2003. Since then, she has been working on alphabets, patterns, textures and much more. Her designs are used in her own book designs, posters and illustrations, but also in public spaces in the form of a facade, fence or floor. To her, the computer is a drawing box. It does not so much work for her, but it allows her to release controlled effects on the vector lines that her own hand puts in it. With a great focus and appetite for work, she intuitively tries things out and experiments. Until she finds something she likes. All the steps, or recipes as she calls them, are documented. The material that is created during this process contains many loose ends that cannot be used at the time. There she finds the seeds for future projects. Van Halem’s designs are layered graphic landscapes in which the eye can wander. Amorphous hairy letter shapes, a sloshing ocean of lines. Hallucinating colours, surfaces, complexity. A mass in motion, solidified for a moment… What does it say? As a viewer, you have to do your best, but that is the beauty of it. What you see can evoke memories of episodes in design history when kaleidoscopic ornamentation was the ideal.