My name is Hidde van Bergen. I am a 3rd year student at Team Academy Netherlands. I started a graphical design agency two years ago which is called Van Bergen Projects. The service I am providing is creating identities for companies and other visual elements for businesses. Examples are: logos, websites, brochures, business cards and posters.
Hugo Lingeman is a photographer and he decided to make a book filled with photographs of places in Amsterdam with no people on it. He asked me to design this book for him and that is how this project started.
Nowadays it gets more and more busy in Amsterdam. Housing seems to get impossible while more tourists and expats are trying to get into Amsterdam. A big headline at this moment is for example the situation with AirBnB in Amsterdam. You are not allowed to rent your apartment more than 60 days a year. Public transport and public places gets overwhelmed with people and Amsterdam isn’t able to keep on managing this process.
While this is happening Hugo Lingeman was getting up early in the morning and took photographs at some of this overcrowded places like Museumplein, Leidseplein and Amsterdam Central Station. He combined all of this images and created a photo book called “Het Is Stil Op Straat” (in English: “It’s Quite On The Streets”)
Hugo Lingeman asked me to design this photo book, which I happily accepted to do for him. It took about 4 months from start to finish to design the book. The process went great and both Hugo as myself are very happy with the result.
When the book was finished with production it went into bookstores and webshops to be sold. The book was sold out within a month and showed a big interest to a lot of people. The timing of this book was perfect. When all the commotion was happening in Amsterdam about it getting to overcrowded Hugo published his book. He was shown on television, newspapers and social media which all contributed to the success of this book.
It was a great experience to have designed this successful book. It gave a really satisfying feeling for both me and Hugo. This project made me aware that graphic design is my true passion and that this is the subject in which I want to develop myself in. The book is a great success which I am really happy about, because I am also part of that success. The book got named as one of the 25 best looking books bij Linnaeus Bookstore in Amsterdam.
You can order the book or find more information about the book on the website: hetisstilopstraat.nl and see more of the projects I worked on on my website: www.vbprojects.nl.
Hidde van Bergen
Want to get in touch with me?
hiddevanbergen@teamacademy.nl
