Written by Roos Giethoorn / Graphic Design Festival 2010 publication #2

For the first time since 2004, Greytones was hanging out on foreign territory. This Eindhoven based initiative driven by Marcel Sloots from design studio Volle Kracht, dared to challenge 10 cities in Holland to take part in the city battle of the year and represent themselves in during the GDFB. 10 design studios were asked to set up a team that would best represent the design ethics of their hometown.

The challenge of Greytones lies in the freedom that is offered to the designers to step out of their daily routines and experiment, have fun and let go of things. It was up to the designers to choose their type of battle. Some went into full attack and others kept their heads cool and chose to reclaim their own city. What all of them had in common was the drive to impress the others with their inventive design skills.

The battle was off the hook! Team Tilburg had called themselves the winner and send out a letter to the press, who took it as the truth and published it in the newspapers. Team Nijmegen locked themselves in a concrete space underneath their city. Here they build a parallel city, which evolved into a love anthem for a city that firmly clings to her secrets. Team Eindhoven dared to look the experiment right in the face. They turned away from their computers and sat down behind the sawing machine.

Team Breda, with team captains that call themselves Staynice, managed to stay nice when confronted with their opponents. But their attack came as a surprise. Breda has always been a typical military town. Breda has a famous legend of the peat skipper, Adriaan van Bergen. During the Eighty Years’ War, Spaniards occupied the castle of Breda. Because they got so tight with the skipper they no longer controlled his cargo. One night, Dutch soldiers hid in the cargo and took over the castle from the inside out. Team Breda used this trick and conquered the book from the inside out. It resulted into foldout pages that would exclude the other cities and create a new cover. The design of the 8 pages of this book, now called Douze Points, are 8 letters each graphically camouflaged by a member of team Breda. Together the letters, make the word ‘Shalalie’. This song, which represented the Netherlands during the Eurovision Song Contest, was written by local hero Pierre Kartner and preformed by Sieneke. When asked if they had felt threatened by another team, the answer was The Hague.

Led by the Ship of Fools, team The Hague was the only one that had the guts to set up a personal attack against all the other team captains. This was their chance to bring it on and finally battle with their colleagues. The design studios were divided amongst the team. The fight was on and resulted in a powerful series of posters! The reaction of the victims was surprisingly friendly which caught the attackers off guard. They had expected to be dissed in return, but instead they asked for a copy of the poster to hang it in their studios. Team Arnhem even invited them to come and paint the text ‘You’re mother thinks you are o.k.’ on a wall at their studio.

On the opening of the GDFB the battle became physical. Again, team The Hague planned for it to get brutal and brought in two crash cars and again, the rest of the teams were chitchatting away and drinking beers together which has become a Greytones tradition. 

Floortje Bouwkamp knows all about these traditions. She has been on the inside of the book for 3 years and was proud to be invited to design the outside of this edition. The book is a visual explosion that gives a clear insight into the energetic battle that has been fought. She used the city flags as a graphic symbol that shows the diversity of the cities. ‘Flags are a non-aggressive sign that symbolizes pride and heraldy.’ If the book is a blueprint of Dutch Design of today is debatable. But it has definitely divided the Greyt Ones from the Grey Tones.

Copyright 2010 Roos Giethoorn