Gert Dumbar: Maverick Gentleman of Dutch Design

Gert Dumbar (1940) is one of the most influential―and colourful―graphic designers in the postwar design field, both in the Netherlands and abroad. As a young partner in Tel Design, he designed one of the most iconic symbols in the Dutch public domain, the logo for the Dutch National Railways, NS, to which he has added countless designs for other clients with his own Studio Dumbar. Applauded or reviled, Studio Dumbar has left an indelible mark on Dutch and international visual culture.
Dumbar produced a vast amount of work, for an enormously varied clientele, from avant-garde theatres to the central government, from hospitals to multinationals. That work and the Werdegang of its namesake are now―for the first time―described and interpreted with great verve by the two authors in a richly illustrated book.
Gert Dumbar, Gentleman Maverick of Dutch Design considers this fabulously versatile oeuvre in its time and context and examines the various roles Dumbar played―that of artist, provocateur and ‘design director’, student and teacher, cultural initiator and mediator. Unique is the treasure trove of sketches from the Studio's archives, which were abundantly sampled for the book. It provides insight into Dumbar's independent, agile mind, his gift for engaging talented young designers, and his ability to time and again seduce his very diverse commissioners to tread unconventional paths.

Gert Dumbar, whose career presently spans more than fifty years, has consistently worked to improve graphic design and visual communication, in the Netherlands, as well as abroad. Dumbar was born in Indonesia in 1940, where he lived for several years before emigrating ‘home’ to the Netherlands with his family. He studied painting and graphic design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and concluded his studies in the post-graduate graphic design programme at the Royal College of Art in London. Dumbar has held several academic appointments, including a professorship at the Royal College of Art in London, the University of Bandung (ITB) in Indonesia, Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit, USA, and DesignLabor in Bremerhaven, Germany. His most recent appointment, in 2003, is at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. He has served on many juries, together with, among others, I.M. Pei, Alessandro Mendini, and A.R. Penck. He has received numerous degrees from, among other institutions, Humberside Polytechnic and the English Southampton Institute. Memberships include the Alliance Graphic International (AGI), the British Designers and Art Directors Association (D&AD) and the Dutch Association of Graphic designers (BNO). Dumbar is married and has two children, a daughter and a son, and a grandson. Author/editor Max Bruinsma (1956) is an independent design critic, editor, curator, editorial designer, and teacher. He was editor-in-chief of Eye, the international review of graphic design in London; Items, the Dutch review of design; and Iridescent, the ICOGRADA peer-reviewed online journal of design research. He studied art, architecture and design history in Groningen and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Since 1984, his critical writings have featured regularly in art and design journals worldwide (including Eye, Idea, ID, Blueprint, the AIGA Journal, Étapes, Form). Bruinsma published and edited several books on graphic and new media design, and taught at numerous design schools in the Netherlands and abroad. Until 2021 he was core tutor Transmedia Storytelling at Camera Arts, Lucerne University of Art and Design, Switzerland. One of his latest publications is Design for the Good Society, the final publication of the Utrecht Manifest Biennial for Social Design, 2015. In 2005 he received the Pierre Bayle Prize for design criticism. A generous selection of his writing can be accessed at maxbruinsma.nl. Author Leonie ten Duis (1942) studied graphic design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. There she met Gert Dumbar, whom she would later marry. She worked as a designer at TelDesign for a few years and then studied Art History at Leiden University. For fifteen years she collaborated with art historian Annelies Haase on various projects in the field of art and design, including curating exhibitions, organizing international conferences on graphic design, and publishing books and essays. Together with Haase, Ten Duis wrote De wereld moe(s)t anders (Amsterdam, 1999), an innovative and seminal book on graphic design and idealism. Visual editor/Book design Renate Boere (1970) is a designer, researcher, editor, writer, and organizer of lectures and symposia. She teaches at the Willem de Kooning Academy and shares her expertise at various national and international universities. Boere works mainly in the social and cultural sector, often in collaboration with artists, other creatives, and writers. Establishing Studio Renate Boere in 1995, she has continuously initiated projects that investigate graphic design practice and connect the meaning of design with social issues. Over the past few years, Studio Renate Boere has won several international Design Awards in the book design category. Her designs tell the context of the book in an intellectual, visual, and interactive way. In 2002, Boere started as a programme co-ordinator at Zefir7-BNO-The Hague. Zefir7 consists of a group of designers who organize monthly lectures on design. Together with design critic Ed van Hinte, Boere started a co-working space for creatives from different disciplines to collaborate on shared research projects while developing individual practices. renateboere.nl Publisher Valiz is an independent international publisher that addresses contemporary developments in art, design, urban affairs, and visual culture. Our books offer critical reflection and interdisciplinary inspiration in a broad-based and imaginative way, often establishing a connection between cultural disciplines and socio-economic questions. Valiz is based in Amsterdam, and connects with authors, artists, designers, institutes, bookshops, distributors and readers worldwide. valiz.nl