This year’s iteration of Offset may have moved to a later date in the calendar than we were accustomed to, but still takes place in the familiar surrounds of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Grand Canal Square and still hosts the now to-be-expected stellar line-up form all corners of the creative universe. Since we last met up with Offset, they’ve spread their wings and launched their first international venture, with Offset London taking place last November. Unlike certain other conferences that bring the world to Dublin (ahem), the team still see our city as their home and this edition of Offset will feature over 20 speakers on its main stage across three days, over 2,500 attendees through its doors, probably as many post-presentation pints and chats in the Ferryman and doubtless ten times as many ideas inspired by a line-up that is guaranteed to not disappoint. Continuing our look at some of the highlights of the line-up from Offset 2016, we take a look at the world renowned dutch design company Studio Dumbar.
Studio Dumbar
Founded by Gert Dumbar in 1977 in Den Haag, Studio Dumbar has been a leading light of the European design scene for nearly four decades, and earning a worldwide reputation for quality that has seen the studio open offices in Seoul and Shanghai, as well as their Rotterdam base.
Studio Dumbar’s client base includes a large amount of public organisations. They have designed schemes for the corporate identities of Dutch railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen), police force (Korps Nationale Politie) and post services (PostNL). Their work usually takes the form of visual and online branding, containing every visible expression of a particular organisation. Their work with the Dutch state railways has produced pictographs which have become and immutable part of the visual language of public spaces. Dumbar himself has referred to it as the “birth of design for the public sector”. The studio’s design work is found throughout Dutch civil society, helping to define how both the Dutch and outsiders come to think of their country, and leading them to international projects with the Danish postal service and Czech Telecoms.
Though the studio’s work is diverse, schemes created by Studio Dumbar typically make inventive use of text, whilst mixing high-concept with clarity, with the company being the recipient of more D&AD awards than everyone except for Pentagram and Apple.
The studio’s reputation is for internationalism, and has a staff drawn from nationalities around the world, whilst working under the studio’s third creative director Liza Enebeis, originally from Greece (Gert Dumbar himself retired in 2003). Studio Dumbar’s projects typically work on a large scale, particularly so when they were tasked with designing an entire visual identity for the Dutch government, a project that saw them 175 pre-existing identities were brought under one unifying scheme. Just as Cruyff had done for their football, Studio Dumbar made the world take notice of the Dutch approach to design, giving it a distinctive identity around the world around, and generating legions of imitators.
Studio Dumbar’s presentation will take place on the Main Stage on Sunday 10th April at 12pm.
Check out our previews of appearances from 4Creative, Studio Dumbar and Stephen Kelleher at this year’s Offset.
Words: Ian Lamont
