Title

Huisstijlprogramma politie

ontwerper
Studio Dumbar
Date
1992

In 1977, Studio Dumbar was founded. Initially, Gert Dumbar worked from his own home on Riouwstraat in The Hague. Kitty de Jong assisted him in this early period with the organization and administration. Right from the start of the design agency, Gert Dumbar worked with all kinds of interns who came from everywhere. His first intern, Michel de Boer, later became his business partner and currently still works at Studio Dumbar. Furthermore, in the early days of the studio, freelance designers were hired. At the end of September 1979, the then considerably larger Studio Dumbar moved to the Kanaalweg in The Hague. In the 1990s, the studio was housed at Bankaplein (to which it moved in 1991). Around 2008, this SD branch closed, leaving only a Dutch branch in Rotterdam. The Rotterdam branch opened in the first half of 1994. Initially on the Westerstraat and then in the Groothandelsgebouw on the Weena. Even before Dumbar started working at Tel Design, he had already experimented photographing plaster figurines he made himself. This so-called Staged Photography was not new in itself, but the way Dumbar used it in his printing was. A combination of photography and exciting, playful typography soon created a very distinctive face for the young but rapidly growing Studio Dumbar. Gert Dumbar almost always collaborated for his photography with his companion Lex van Pieterson. They gave a secretary's dog an important role in Studio Dumbar printing. By 1993, however, staged photography was finished and Dumbar forbade its continued use because, in his own words, it was becoming a style that was being imitated too much.

In the twenty-plus years that comprise the archive included here, Studio Dumbar grew from a small design studio with one well-known designer to a sizeable breeding ground for young talent, from which several well-known designers emerged. Such as De Boer and Ko Sliggers, who did an internship there in 1979 and then worked there for a time (in 2007 the NAGO opened up Ko Sliggers' archive).

From 1990, Gert Dumbar was no longer solely responsible for the fortunes of the office. In that year, a new construction was created in which Kitty de Jong BV and Michel de Boer BV were established, who together with Gert Dumbar Beheer BV formed the management of Studio Dumbar BV. The three of them thus formed the management of the studio. From this time, a clear professionalization in the studio's working methods can also be discerned. Already in 1986 the idea existed within the studio that Gert Dumbar would work less as a producer, but would have more of an advisory, teaching role within the agency. Studio Dumbar helped define the graphic face of the Netherlands. During his TelDesign period, Gert Dumbar was responsible for the NS, for which he continued to carry out assignments after 1977. In addition, Studio Dumbar designed corporate identities for various Ministries, the Municipality of Groningen, the logo of the police, when the Municipal and National Police were merged at the beginning of the nineties, the PTT corporate identity was initially worked on together with Total Design and finally everything came to Studio Dumbar, followed by assignments for KPN and TNT. But not only government and corporate identities were designed at the Studio, cultural clients also knew how to find the studio. For example, the studio designed for the Holland Festival, the Nationale Toneel was a client, and for years the studio took care of the printed matter for Theater Zeebelt (of which Gert Dumbar was one of the co-founders), with a high level of experimentation.