Welcome to the hybrid, diverse, and fast-moving Graphic Design Alumniverse, a universe housing multiple ecosystems and species, relationships, and challenges.
On a cold Thursday evening in early December, a group of alum and students were welcomed into the Alumniverse, temporarily taking shelter at Paradise in The Hague. Co-heads Lauren Alexander and Chantal Hendriksen presented five alum’s practices, in an open conversation exploring all the detours that happen when a student graduates from the Academy and sets off into the real world(s).
Sitting in the centre of a semi-circle of alum and students were Koos Breen (2014), whose practice lives in the intersections of art direction, design, and art; Donna van West (2015), who, after graduation, followed her passion for filmmaking and storytelling; Yessica Deira (2020), a maker, artistic researcher and DJ whose practice is as multi-layered as her music selection, Ocean Albin (2021), whose professional practice encompasses branding, motion, type, web, and editorial design, and Charlotte van Alfen (2022), an illustrator and graphic designer based in Rotterdam, who explores diverse visual languages and is currently expanding her practice into art direction.
Already, through each introduction, we get a sense that there isn’t just one design practice that comes out of the KABK: each practitioner gathers everything they learned from their teachers and peers, and rewrites their discipline every day.
Once we are out of the Academy, the safe space which is aptly named the “aquarium” (referring to the department’s glass walls and hallways) breaks, and you’re out in the open. But we always carry a parachute, a skillset both from the Academy and our lived experiences that helps us. For each of the graduates, the tools varied from saying multiple ‘yeses’, to keeping up with contacts, to going abroad, to starting self-initiated assignments — because what else do you do with all that sudden free time and urge to create? One thing is certain: it comes in small steps, not in big leaps. With each, something new is learnt; you are closer to yourself. There are no gaps, only transition phases.
The Alumniverse is made of constellations: it is the collaboration around each alum that shapes them. Even in the lonely role of the freelance designer, you create communities of practice. For Ocean, that happens in the shared studio spaces with other creators. For Yessica, it’s through multidisciplinary projects and working groups in the cultural sector (and of course, on the dance floor). For both Koos and Donna, work comes out of collaborations — getting assignments by word of mouth, from friends who need an extra hand, by showing up.
The conversation, which touched on finances and “making a living” as a designer, and reflected on their own experiences in education, was concluded by looking ahead into what’s still to come for each alum.
Over eight years of graduating generations there was a common wish: to get back to materiality and print, cherishing the access to experimentation in the Academy. Even in the reality of work, the joy of making never leaves.
By Carolina Valente Pinto
