Design Hero — Spring 2025

About to hurl myself into the abyss of my most important project yet…
let’s hope I can pull it off.

It’s official. I’m committed to the Communications track— good riddance to last semester’s 7-week Product Design interlude. Design hero is upon us, and I couldn’t be more excited / trepidatious. Excidatious?

Initial Feelings

Since going home to Seattle over winter break, one specific designer has been knocking around in my brain: PNW native Art Chantry. A non-conformist maverick of the design world, the man responsible for the aesthetics of the grunge movement, and a rightfully-crotchety rockstar in his old age… essentially, everything I look up to. The guy even taught my dad in design school.

I love his work. It’s gritty, beautiful, garage-rock nonsense. Chantry’s design is dive bars, bumming cigarettes in line for The Vogue, couch surfing, smashing office lobby corporate art with a baseball bat. It’s rebellion against Bauhaus Believers. It’s a battle cry to disaffected youth… and a sneering, biting “fuck you” to the design snobs who would one day embrace him.

Day one of C studio, I felt committed. I had popped the question to the little Art Chantry who lives in my head, and we were already packing our bags for a romantic honeymoon. Wait! Trouble in paradise… doubt starts to creep in.

Brett gives an overview of the project and lets us know that we’ll need two designers to pick from. I talk with my peers and learn about the shining standards of design excellence they’re picking. People with influence, people who command respect, people with refined tastes and editorial flair. Here are two points of creeping anxiety:

• Art Chantry and his work are eccentric, to say the least. He does not fit the polished, minimal, vector-art aesthetics of today’s trends. I know it’s still extremely early in my design career, but how will a project on Chantry look to potential employers?
• In my own practice, I already create spunky, punky work that could be described as Chantry-esque. Should I choose someone that will challenge me? Someone that will show my range as a designer? I need to get back into searching. Who can I target?

Several More Options

After hours of scouring through influential designer rankings, online archives, and my own collection of design books, I came up with five more legends for my list.

1. Wolfgang Weingart

The father of Swiss New Wave. Born in 1941, Weingart was trained in typesetting, linocut, and classical Swiss Typography, which gave way to a love affair with completely blowing the Swiss style apart. His work is highly experimental — letters and geometric forms are diced, minced, and tossed across the page like a bowl of salad fixings. I love how he twists the grid to his own perverse whims. Maybe it’s the Saul Bass devotee in me talking, but I’m also a sucker for red and black… Weingart gets it.

2. David Carson

A designer who needs no introduction. To hell with the grid, right? Spontaneous, collage-oriented champion of the “why not” ethos. Carson ruled the 90s with his grungey type, working with Ray Gun, Nine Inch Nails, and an extensive list of top-tier brands. Groundbreaking innovator through and through. His chaos captivates me.

3. Mevis & Van Deursen

Armand Mevis and Linda van Deursen are a 4-D pair: Dynamic Dutch Design Duo. Both graduates 1986 from Gerrit Rietveld Academy, these two have taken Dutch design traditions and lovingly translated them into a visual style that is all their own. A delicate balance of type and image, obscuring some aspects to reveal others. They are responsible for the branding of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where I had two near-religious design experiences that would require another Medium blog to detail.

4. Piet Zwart

Active in the Netherlands in the 20s and 30s, Piet Zwart is a paragon of primary colors and perfect typography. Zwart was trained in architecture and influenced by De Stijl; this shows in his meticulously crafted compositions. Text-askew and the controlled chaos of jauntily angled letterforms: it’s logical for an architect to show constructivist influence.

5. Karel Martens

And finally, we reach my favorite new addition. Karel Martens: typographer, collector of found objects, student, teacher, and proponent of the belief that work is never done. Highly respected Dutch freelancer who has been active since the early 60s. Process-oriented and nearly mathematical in the way he practices design. I believe I could learn more from Karel than anyone else on my list — his densely layered layouts, controlled chaos of analogue textures, and playful color experimentation are all things I admire, but at this point, can’t execute. I love Art Chantry because he represents my personal style pushed to the extreme, but I respect Karel Martens because his work encapsulates all the design skills I’m lacking in. A side-note: I met him at the Stedelijk Museum with my family!

Slipping in some more of his work so I can stare at it and salivate.

Kommitting to Karel

A Hero for Two?

It’s official — I’ve cemented my plans to pursue Martens. His work inspires me like nothing else I’ve seen (besides ol’ Art) and I can’t wait to delve into his design identity.

It looks like I may be doubling up on Karel with Amy, one of my classmates. This situation is either rare or never-before-seen in Sophomore year. I’m still waiting on confirmation, but Brett urged both of us to pursue him if it truly feels right. I, for one, am sticking to my guns.

This could create an interesting in-class dynamic, and my plan of action is to simply meet roadblocks as they come. Of course, my most pressing concern is producing similar work… so I’m reframing this as an opportunity to push myself creatively. If I have a good idea, I’ll twist it, squeeze it, and smash it into a great idea. I will go harder than ever before.

Another thing to consider: this is a chance to grow according to my own needs as a designer. This project won’t always be seen in the context of my class — it will likely be the flagship piece of my portfolio, meaning it will be seen by hiring managers, non-CMU designers, and everyone else I’m dying to impress. I need to move in a direction which I believe is most beneficial for my practice, which means proving my versatility, stepping out of my comfort zone, and prioritizing my design development over my concerns about sharing a Hero.

Regardless of how this situation shakes up, I’m more excited than nervous. I wish the best to my fellow Marten Maniac! I’ll stop with the silly names. I feel unprofessional.

Research & Mood Boards

Karel Martens Essay

Not the easiest thing in the world to write. Six pages of research, all synthesized into a (hopefully) coherent record of all things Karel Martens. I probably struggled most with keeping his timeline straight, as he tends to talk about interesting experiences he’s had in his career without mentioning when they happened. I’ve done my best to condense everything I’ve learned about him into something digestible. I’m glad this is out of the way! It was important for me to familiarize myself with Karel as much as possible before starting on poster sketches, as I think what I’ve learned will greatly inform my process.

In the snooty realm of creative classification, there are two boxes one can fall into: artist or designer. When Karel Martens is shoved into one or the other, he politely climbs out, says “no thank you” in clipped Dutch tones, and takes the box to the nearest Amsterdam recycling centre where it can be turned into eco-friendly paper towels. After 60 years of insatiably curious, line-blurring practice, Martens still insists the only difference between art and design is the label. We must give him credit for this mindset — his contributions to education, his explorative creative ethos, and his influence on the wider visual world transcend both “artist” and “designer.” For Karel Martens, “hero” is the only appropriate title.

Born 1939 in Mook en Middelaar, a quaint municipality in the Netherlands, Martens’ origins are undeniably humble. His rural upbringing did not deter him from following his creative passions, as a fixation on Fine Arts led Martens to enroll in the Arnhem Academy of Art and Industrial Arts in the mid-50s. Graphic design was still in its infancy. A career in the field was unheard of, let alone a degree. Martens maintains that this was not detrimental to his design practice — quite the opposite, in fact. “Design education today places too much emphasis on just design,” he says. “It’s better to be fed by society and other disciplines.” During his stint at AAAIA, Martens became well-acquainted with the limitations of primitive design technology, which often required the manual execution of tedious, un-automated tasks. Before his graduation in 1961, Martens hand-drew enough 9 point type to bring a 21st century designer to tears.

Even in the early stages of his practice, Martens favored an ethos that would carry him through his decades-long career: relentless experimentation, a passion for education, and community-oriented values. Two mentors, Henk Peeters and Adam Roskam, introduced Martens to the world of experimental printing in the late 60s. While Peeters’ influence came from his reproducible work and repetitive subject matter, Roskam provided Martens with his first bookbinding press. Martens began using the press to print ink-shellacked stencils, carpentry rules, and blocks from lego sets, a practice called ‘monoprinting’ which he remains infatuated with a half-century later.

Though he initially based his design practice in small villages, Martens’ attitude towards his work has never been isolationist. His first client was Van Loghum Slaterus, a modest publisher of social-science texts, which paved the way for Martens to design for the Socialistiese Uitgeverij Nijmegen press in the early 70s. His community work did not stop there — in 1977, he began teaching at ArtEZ College of Art in Arnhem, where he also designed coins, postage stamps, and telephone cards for the Dutch government. The 90s brought an opportunity to get creative at architectural journal OASE, which serves as a canvas for Martens’ experimental design concepts to this day. He describes each issue as a “regular visit to a friend,” explaining his wish to create a magazine that would “always work as a surprise.” He frequently invites former students to work alongside him on OASE and beyond, a tradition he maintains to further his learning and avoid stagnation. Jaap van Triest, one of his first ArtEZ protégés, assisted in the creation of Printed Matter (1996), a highly celebrated book which covers six decades of Martens’ practice.

Ever-inspired by the next design generation, the capstone of Martens’ teaching legacy is Werkplaats Typografie, a masters program in Graphic Design at the AAAIA founded alongside former student Wigger Bierma. WT was established in 1998 as a functional studio where professors and students collaborate on commissioned work, and is a shining example of Martens’ commitment to education. Unless creating for sheer personal enjoyment, Martens works in noble service of his own community. A constant thread through his vast body of work is a strong sensitivity to the world at large, coupled with a yearning to explore his own creativity as thoroughly as possible. He says it best himself: “I’m regretting more of the things that I didn’t do in my life than the things that I did.”

To be perfectly honest, that’s a ridiculous statement from the legendary Karel Martens. When looking past his professional achievements and into the content of his practice, the mind simply boggles. Martens has mastered the art of limitation, best shown in his typographic work. “Design shouldn’t be too complete,” he says. “It’s harder, and more important, to take a small part of a design and turn it into a suggestion.” Another stand-out in Martens’ body of work is his monoprint collection: meticulously overlayed forms printed from industrial scrap, immortalized in the most unexpected colors. Usually printed on informational cards, these compositions create florets, concentric circles, letterforms, and other fascinatingly unidentifiable shapes. A single work may take Martens months to finish; each layer must be printed separately as the process is contingent on the ink’s drying time. Monoprints are a perfect example of how Martens’ fine art training and design experience overlap: they are beautifully composed, crafted with intense precision, and possess all the hallmarks of great design… but Martens makes them for fun, not to solve a problem or communicate information to an audience. The aesthetics of design with fine art intentions. Martens’ work in these separate disciplines is exceptional, but his ability to meld the two is a testament to his skill and versatility.

Karel Martens has miraculously avoided the most common pitfall of legendary designers: the risk of obsolescence. Rather than becoming an increasingly obvious ‘product of his time,’ he has adapted as the design world evolves around him. It can be hard to tell whether a Martens piece was created five years ago or fifty — his embrace of change and relentless drive to learn are the perfect recipe for timelessness. In both practice and personal philosophy, Martens is an aspirational figure for young designers everywhere, leading by example through innovation and compassion. His influence can be seen in every corner of modern design, and his work has touched countless creatives. If Karel Martens’ visual expression speaks to anything, it’s love.

Initial Poster Drafts

Draft Details

Hello, hypergraphia! I’ve missed you dearly.

It is deeply shameful for me to admit this, but I’ve been doing some nigh-unforgivable Medium slacking. Could be the weather, the ten thousand extracurricular commitments I’ve loaded my plate up with, or just a general sense of bleghk. Regardless, I’ve made it to the finale of The Sopranos (one less distraction, but I’ll never get over the cut-to-black) and finished reading The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd, so my inspo-meter is back to full. It’s 12:30 AM, I just made a PB&J and I’m ready to crank this out.

My top goal in the creation of these drafts: variety. I have a tendency to pick a darling in the ideation stage, fall in love with it, and refuse to kill it off even when my infatuation is detrimental. Here are some motifs from Martens’ work that I took inspiration from:

• Printing with found objects: industrial junk, washers and dowels, weird wood shrapnel, etc. The possibilities for integrating these are endless — their forms are so versatile! I’ve brought them into drafts 5, 8, and 10. Draft 5 shows a ‘KM’ constructed from long rods riddled with holes — a genre of scrap which Martens prints with often. 8 uses prints as text-framing decoration, while 10 shows more letterforms made from found objects (in whole pieces this time). From this selection, number 10 might be my favorite. I have a sneaking suspicion that Brett would prefer some hand-crafted type over a readymade font, and this is an idea ripe for expanding on.

5, 8, 10

• Line-layering print effect: This is a treatment that Martens often gives to images. I’ve done my best to recreate it in drafts 2 and 9 with some crude line-weight variation — I’m including a genuine Martens example so my hand-drawn attempt can be put to shame. Going back to the whole “75% typographical” deal… blowing up Karel’s face to fill most of the poster (with the addition of a photo treatment that I don’t know how to execute) may be a bad move. May circle back if I find a way to achieve this in Photoshop. Pray for me.

2, 9, Example

• Museum card printing: Martens often produces his monoprints on decommissioned Stedelijk Museum cards. This creates a neat little contrast of vibrant, painstakingly printed forms (designed to be beautiful) and dense informational layouts (designed to be anything but beautiful). I’ve used these card layouts as backgrounds for drafts 3, 6 and 11. This could be a fun way to introduce contrast into a finished poster… just imagine all the little Martens easter eggs I could hide in mock-museum card text.

3, 6, 11

• The museum card point is a nice segue into my next motif: Martens’ actual monoprints, seen in drafts 1, 4, and 7. I concentrated on his little florets and concentric circles, as I think they’re prime fodder for scattering across a page. A little obscuration here, maybe some overlap between prints, and we have a nice, simple visual for Martens’ work. I’m realizing that my description sounds a little belittling — not my intention. Maybe this is my subconscious expressing that I’m just not too sure about this. I must say, however, I’m getting a good gut feeling about draft 4 (in the middle down there). There’s something very alluring about the layout, plus I just love writing things in a language I don’t understand. A possible metaphor for his Dutch identity? Something to mull over.

Type-Based Poster References

Some quick notes on my three inspiration picks. I thought each exemplified a certain something I’d like to capture in my final poster…

• A clever, eye-catching layout. The first poster features text which snakes around the borders in a delightfully spiral-y manner. I love how simple the typeface is — a classic sans-serif with tons of potential for wacky arrangements. I think if the typeface was more decorative, the layout concept might not work as well. And hey, my rendition is… there. Not my best — the magic is definitely lost, but so it goes.
• Some sort of grid-based organizational system. I picked poster #2 because it reminded me of the museum cards Martens prints on. The constraint of such a densely gridded layout gives the designer some beautifully awkward typesetting opportunities — I love the two spaces between ‘Marcus’ and ‘Marr,’ the vast swath of empty pink bars, and the kitschy, movie theatre-esque layout of event details below. By all rights, this shouldn’t look as good as it does. That’s why it’s great! In my take, I used a similar layout with the addition of Martens’ rectangular monoprints. It might be interesting to lace them throughout the grid.
• Layered printing effects. The last poster had some finger-lickin’-good use of positive/negative space. I love how cutouts in the orange overlay reveal text beneath. I wouldn’t do exactly this, I’d probably take this concept and apply it to one of Martens’ signature printing techniques, but this is a nice bit of inspiration.

Draft Critique

Brett’s Crit

Halfway through class, I caught a glimpse of the list that Brett was waving around and saw that Maddie and I would be sharing on Thursday. Oh well! To prevent a joint freakout, we both scheduled chats with Brett ahead of our presentation times (thank god).

Printing out my drafts confirmed what I suspected from the moment I uploaded them to Medium — I have a problem with overly-dense compositions. Seeing my drafts on the wall made my head spin a bit. So many elements, so little breathing room. I must remember: white space is my friend! Regardless, I put ‘em up and had Brett take a look.

Thanks Maddie! So stalker-ish!

The consensus: I’ve got a lot of interesting ideas to pursue, but I don’t have two posters that scream “Choose us and no one else!” By the end of my chat with Brett, I ended up with stars, question marks, and little notes on at least five of my drafts. I received valuable feedback about what wasn’t working (ex: the giant KM portraits, as expected) and some great comments on what I could flesh out more. The ‘found objects as type’ idea is interesting, though my current execution isn’t looking too hot. Same deal with the ‘museum cards as backgrounds’ gimmick. Lots of refinement needed!

One shining beacon of hope is my Nederlands Grafisch Ontwerper poster — the one with broken-up text & florets scattered between letterforms. Brett was drawn to this layout. My gut feeling was right! This is definitely one I’ll be pursuing… though I’ll need to make the type my own. We won’t be sticking with plain old Monotype Grotesque here. Thanks again to Brett for the advice!

Class Crit

And now it’s time for my peers to weigh in. Brett’s crit was essentially one big spoiler for this round, which is all good with me! Nederlands Grafisch Ontwerper was a winner once again. Friends pointed out the potential of using found objects as type, as well as the intrigue of the letter-layering motif shown on the bottom right draft. This is one I haven’t really touched on yet, though it’s something I could see myself getting excited about. The whole idea is CMYK letters printed on top of each other… but this doesn’t come across in black and white (duh).

The plan: I’ll be pursuing the aforementioned Nederlands layout, plus some sort of ‘found objects as type’ concept.

• For Nederlands: I’ll need to make it interesting. That’s the real challenge. How do I preserve this simple layout for a head-turning final? Some sort of effect will need to be applied… line printing? Letter layering? weird textures? Jeez.
• For ‘found objects as type:’ Be more intentional with how they’re actually constructed! What colors will be used? Should there be overlap? What sorts of quirky inconsistencies can I create here? A museum card grid might be nice in the background for this one. Think on it.

Photo cred to Michele! ❤

Direction One

How can I squish my smorgasbord of ideas into two solid drafts?

I decided to tackle my clearest idea first: refined found-object type. I’d played around with this motif in my early drafting stage, but with mediocre results… likely due to chunky letterforms. If I ditch the scrap-metal-shaped-like-an-E idea and go the Martens route of creating letters from multiple pieces, I may have more success.

Asset Drafting

I’m aiming for variety, variety, variety. Even if a certain letter appears multiple times in K-A-R-E-L M-A-R-T-E-N-S, I’m creating a new form for each recurrence. I’m being much more intentional with my colors — no muddy primaries! We’re doing vibrant vermillions and refined, desaturated blues. Classy business.

Putting It All Together

Building off an earlier idea of including a museum card background, I whipped up a grid to place behind my now carefully overlapped letterforms. This provides some nice structure — a visible grid, but not a screamingly obvious one. Decorative on the outside, functional on the inside. Like one of those novelty bicycle helmets with a wig attached.

I played around with small hand-written notations and vaguely informational sets of numbers, which brought in some nice detail and depth. I think this is an idea I’d pursue, but I’ll need to be careful with how much attention I draw to these decorative elements. Can’t make ‘em look like they’re meant to be read.

Boom, one draft down! Now to tackle #2.

Direction Two

I love this printing texture. I really, really love it. But I hate, hate, HATE how difficult it will be to replicate. How did Martens pull this off? It can’t be a simple filter, the gridded nature of the lines is too controlled for that. If it was done by hand, I admire the patience and I dread the hours of line-placing that awaits me… but I’m resigned to the fact that I must see this through. I will execute this effect if it’s the last thing I do!

I’m planning on applying these lines to my favorite draft. I’m excited about the composition, but I don’t think the florets are working too well. I need to find a way to bring that “coolness factor” to this type without mucking up the layout, and an interesting texture is a prime strategy for this endeavor.

Early (failed) Attempts

I started out with some god-awful attempts at replicating the effect with half-tone filters. Of course, this looked horsey and juvenile. I learned quickly that I wouldn’t be able to cheat my way out of this — it’s by-hand or bust.

Getting There…

I finally cracked the code! The trick is to lay down a dense grid with ‘snap-to’ on, ensuring equal line spacing. With my type layer beneath at 20% opacity, I began “tracing” letters with lines. For a while, it felt like pixel painting, but once I added the thick-to-thin gradient effect, things started coming together. Phew! 7 hours of work, but the hardest part is out of the way.

Color Repetition and Typesetting

This is where I really started having fun. I brought back another idea from an old draft… exciting, but an absolute failure in its initial execution, all thanks to my predilection for drafting in grayscale. Here’s the skinny: layered letters in CMYK that add some Martens flair without interrupting the readability of my poster text.

Picking a Direction

The least-shocking news of all time: line printing is a winner.

I saw this coming. Not only is time & effort very clearly visible in my second draft, it’s also a far more unique take on Martens. Though I’m still a little attached to my found object letterforms, I think they’re a bit too obvious. Maybe I’ll save them for my booklet, but as of now, I’m locked in on option 2.

Crit Bits

Hallelujah, praise be! I may have landed on something great. I wasn’t stabbed through the heart with any suggestions of starting over, and Brett seems to like my composition and type treatment. The lines stay! Fantastic, because recreating this effect on a new layout would be hell.

Main areas to focus on:

• CMYK is a little lame. Look at the pretty colors in my first poster option… way more interesting to look at! Since I’ve done most of the grunt work of compiling a palette, I’ll pull some of these shades into my final poster.
• Feels very digital right now, and that’s not how Martens operates! Another suggestion that I heard during critique — incorporate some of the paper textures and inky fades from the first poster into the second.
• Adding onto the last point — bring that museum card grid back in! We can’t have a plain white background, oh no. We want layers and density. Plus, it’ll make the final piece feel more like a physical, printed poster… two birds, one stone, dead.

The Final

Super happy with this. From drafting to final, this was a semi-painless process. I’m extremely lucky to have landed on something I felt so confident in, and even though burnout, restarts, and frustration certainly lie ahead, I’m glad I can bask in the warm glow of feeling good about my work.

Revisions made since last draft:

• Integrated papery overlays, new colors, and museum card motifs, all of which added depth and texture.
• Hand-wrote some little notes to nestle in the museum card tables. I think I succeeded in making them feel natural & authentic!
• In the final days leading up to our deadline, Brett suggested giving my body copy the same treatment as the decorative notations on the background tables — smudgy, imperfect, just slightly shittier. I loved this idea! I took to Photoshop and started blurring, layering, and grungifying. The end result was lovely! Smudging made the body copy feel at home in the poster, instead of just slapped on top.

First leg of design hero down… much, much more to go! I am so proud of my classmates. This was a real challenge, and everyone has risen to the occasion in the most impressive of ways. 75% typographical constraint? Walk in the park for Sophomore C Stu!

Kudos to all. See you for spreads!