Jorn de Vries
31, Rotterdam, graphic designer
This friendly guy always has a smile on his face. I think most people feel at ease when Jorn is around. During his housewarmingparty things got a little wild on the balcony when several people were singing out loud guided by the ‘singstar’ game on the PS3. One neighbor was fed up with it and became furious. He was screamin’ and standing on the street like he was ready to fight. While most people at the party were like: aaah fuck em’, he ain’t shit, Jorn and his friendly face walked down and talked to the fellow. In a few minutes he calmed down and walked away. Besides Jorn being a good neighbor (he happen to be my neighbor too) he is nice with the mouse as well. Meet Jorn.
Dhani: Tell us what you do for a living?
Jorn: I am a graphic designer, so for a living I design printed matter. I have a company named almost Modern together with a friend of mine, Markus Rummens.
Dhani: What seperates almost Modern from other graphic design company?
Jorn: We always try to find the best solutions for the client according to us, mostly this results in a combination between typography, content and language. We try to let our designs be more then just the given information — this is not always visible, it can be in form, or paper or any choice that evolves from the process of designing. Mostly those ‘extra’s” are about love, women or labour. This way of working evolved from a project called User, in where we silkscreened a poster every month and sending it out to our recipients, while asking for a response picture with our poster in it. This project was about the creating process and the ammount of influence you can have in every stage of this process of creating a poster. So we’re used to letting a design be more then just communication of information, we’re making it almost Modern.
— the pure poetry of a beautiful view, on a clear day —
Dhani: Can you show us some work that you made that you are proud of?
Jorn:
One of our earlier works. This is an invite for our studio opening, we made a sentance with the word modern, roughly translated it says something like: “But also the true romanticism of course”
Debate invites for the Unie in Rotterdam about the political climate. Really fun to use that font hehe.
Our new visit.
The latest poster we silkscreened, it was some time ago since we actually were in the silkscreen workshop and made a poster by hand. I have this poster hanging in my living room.
We designed this logo reffering to a quote by Paul Rand (american designer):
“Making the most of the Least” We made “the most” out of a square by splitting it in two diagonally and putting them just out of place.
We designed a book for Atelier Rijksbouwmeester, in the Hague. In our work we usually make grids based on the golden-mean ratio. In this book we wanted to make that visible in a subtle way. So we took the page that is the golden-mean ration page and made it black. This way there is a -grid- line visible when u look at the book when it’s just laying on the table. Also we added a small sentence on that page:
“At that precise moment she said nothing”
Dhani: Any big plans for the company Almost Modern?
Jorn: We just moved to a new creative breeding-ground near the Hofplein area in Rotterdam. The building is called Schieblock, and from the first of august it houses architects, designers, film makers, urban developers, researchers and artists – all to research the ever ongoing transformation of the City. Also we just did the identity for this building/project, so keep your eyes open for projects in “het Schieblock”.
Dhani: What would be your ultimate dreamclient to work for?
Jorn: One who want to work with us on basis of the work we make, and how we get there. Definately not a client who want to have three options to choose from, there must be some sort of trust in the fact that almost Modern knows the best option for the client.
Dhani: Where did you get that that cool Facebook profile picture?
Jorn: We — me and my girlfriend — happened to be tagged. The resemblance to me and her is just amazing.
