Anouk de l’Ecluse

is an independent designer who has become an expert in guiding (undeveloped) stories and developing strong concepts. I believe that every design can reveal a unique story and should reinforce it to achieve the desired goal. With my work, I aim to exceed expectations. This requires extraordinary stories and courageous clients. Together, we can harvest admiration for the power of narratives. 

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De derde vrouw / Natalie C. Barney


Velvet Publishers

Book design 

Velvet Publishers is the Dutch publisher of les-bi-queer literature. By publishing LBQ stories, Velvet Publishers aims to actively contribute to the positive representation of les-bi-queer individuals with editions of LBQ classics, modern translated literature and the launch of a special new series: the les-bi-queer Pulpature series.
Their mission is a wider and happier representation of les-bi-queers' lives in Dutch-language literature.

    For their series Vintage publications Velvet publishers asked me to design the cover of ‘De derde vrouw’ by Natalie Clifford Barney. In English the book is know as ‘Women Lovers, Or the Third Woman’ and is a lesbian love triangle avant la lettre. It is an intense and poetic modernist novel about three women deeply devoted and in love with each other, and chronicles the transformation of their relationship. The idea of the “Third Woman” is not only a reference to one of the women in the novel being left out by the others, but also to the idea that being a lesbian was being part of a “third sex”.  

    Due to the fact that the book was the first within the series, I had to not only design a captivating cover but also create a concept for the coming books within the Vintage series. The traingle became the core element in which I constructed the concept. It is a prominent shape within Velvet’s identity and ties it together to the V of vintage. 1 + 1 becomes more. 
     For this title we chose to have the design reminiscent of a kaleidoscope. But the concept is so that it is very versatile in usage. Cool fact – the image on the cover is Natalie Clifford Barney herself!



Colophon 
Concept & design
    Anouk de l’Ecluse

Image
    Natalie Clifford Barney, c. 1898, photograph by Emery, Bar Harbor (Maine)







    Brochure 2024


    Velvet Publishers

    Print design 

    Velvet Publishers is the Dutch publisher of les-bi-queer literature. By publishing LBQ stories, Velvet Publishers aims to actively contribute to the positive representation of les-bi-queer individuals with editions of LBQ classics, modern translated literature and the launch of a special new series: the les-bi-queer Pulpature series.
    Their mission is a wider and happier representation of les-bi-queers' lives in Dutch-language literature.

        For the 2024 launch of their books I designed the brochure based on the identity made by studio megan. A great collaboration within a limited time frame and budget. Who says you can’t design nice items with limitations?



    Colophon 
    Concept & design
        Anouk de l’Ecluse

    Text
         Velvet Publishers

    Font
         Ginka

    Print
         Pantheon Drukkers







      To look is to wait


      Caroline Kist

      Website design

      Photography is waiting, waiting to see that which is unknow if it will come. Only when Caroline has found it does she know what she was looking for. That takes time. Most of her images hover between coincidence and attribution, between what she sees and what she is looking for.

         But just as the unknown can only emerge from the known, so can freedom of the imagination only really emerge from limitation, from a structure.
      This structure sends the looking in a direction that seems to lead outside the image. Seeing by looking, and doubting.

          In the way Caroline talks about her work I wanted the viewer of the website to be able to meander and touch upon the waiting element. When you make a choice it sets something in motion. Elements appear and disappear, similar to what you see in Caroline’s images. So instead of just stumbling into her images, I gave the text a prominent roll to really settle down and tap into a concentrated state of mind. This way the website stacks meaning on top of each other to eventually create space to absorb the idea of ‘to look is to wait’.



      Colophon Photography & text
          Caroline Kist

      Concept & design
         Anouk de l’Ecluse



      carolinekist.nl



        ‘Aborted Biography, from the Archive of Djuna Barnes’, 2024, prints, courtesy the digital archives of the University of Maryland, U.S.A., and the personal archive of Hank O’Neal, and the artist. Installation view «Barbara Visser – Alreadymade», Kunsthaus Zürich, 2024 Curated by Simone Gehr. Photo: © Kunsthaus Zürich, Franca Candrian
        ‘Aborted Biography, from the Archive of Djuna Barnes’, 2024, prints, courtesy the digital archives of the University of Maryland, U.S.A., and the personal archive of Hank O’Neal, and the artist.
        Map of exhibition Kunsthaus Zürich
        Installing exhibition
        Installing Georg Kolbe (1877–1947),
        Wälzende, 1926 Bronze
        Alberto Giacometti, Kopf der Mutter. Studie (clay, ca.1916), obscured by a Failed Fountain (ceramic, 2024), Barbara Visser
        Sketch of the subjective time line of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
        Elsa Freytag-Loringhoven’s subjective  time line  of  people, places, events, gossip, works on the wall in pencil. In front: The blind man, 5.1917
        Installation view «Barbara Visser – Alreadymade», Kunsthaus Zürich, 2024 Photo: © Kunsthaus Zürich, Franca Candrian

        Alreadymade II (installation)


        Barbara Visser

         Sparring partner exhibition 
        Documentation + text design
         08.02.2024 – 12.05.2024 Kunsthaus Zürich

        ‘Fountain’, a urinal that was declared to be a work of art in 1917, is perhaps the best-known conceptual object of the 20th century. Signed ‘R. Mutt’, it was submitted anonymously to an exhibition by the Society of Independent Artists in New York; since then, everyday objects can be ‘readymades’ and qualify as art too. Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) claimed authorship of the work. However, there are rumours that it was not he who masterminded it but rather the Dada artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874–1927).

            The film ‘Alreadymade’ (2023), which forms the basis for Visser’s site-specific installation at Kunsthaus Zürich, is an alternative whodunnit that explores the boundaries between genuine and fake. ‘Fountain’ is the starting point of the artist and film-maker’s investigation into the speculation surrounding Duchamp’s authorship. Adopting the readymade approach, she produces the work from existing material: found film footage from which she creates her own moving images, employing new technologies such as motion capture and meta-human modelling. The result is not an art-historical documentation; rather, the mix of existing and newly created material serves as a reflection on such fundamental questions as ‘what is reality, and what is fake?’ Who is the author? What is an original and what is a copy?

            Barbara asked me to be her sparring partner for this exhibition and give shape to parts of it. Working closely together we discussed the installation and I became responsible for the time line of Von Freytag-Loringhoven her life with all the ambiguity surrounding it, the sketches of Djuna Barnes her ideas of the biography she would never write of Von Freytag-Loringhoven and helped on multiple parts consisting of the graphic design within the exhibition; such as the ‘do not touch’ items + a reader consisting of all the writing of Von Freytag-Loringhoven. I also assisted Barbara during the installation of the exhibition in Kunsthaus Zürich.

            Kunsthaus Zürich is the first museum where this new work was shown. It will also be shown in Germany and possibly in the Netherlands.



        barbaravisser.net
        kunsthaus.ch





          3:1


          Elisabeth van Sandick

          Book design

          A book which comes in three parts plus an index. As Sandick puts it: ‘Nothing is ever the same, for what I see today may seem entirely different tomorrow. The formal object I observe is a shape that bears an identity, a character that I can relate to and that manifests itself in fresh ways each time I see it. That turns them into landmarks* in the world I set out into. And to which I return. Always in a different manner. Going back does not mean standing still, even if it feels that way at times. Until I spot something I hadn’t known before, and find that I can return and move forward at the same time. 
              *Landmarks: objects that I know and do not know.’

              This publication plays with the conceptual idea that images can return and have a different meaning. A zooming in and out, a rotation in time and place, a returning but with different meaning. The monumental structures you think you have seen before but by keeping the design and edit structured and minimal, everything has its place where it is. However subtle it may initially appear. You could even think there is not an order as such; all to keep returning to it as if it were a first encounter.



          ColophonPhotography & text
              Elisabeth van Sandick

          Concept & design

               Anouk de l’Ecluse 
             
          Edit
              Elisabeth van Sandick
              Karianne Bueno
              Anouk de l’Ecluse

          Lithography
              Marc Gijzen

          Print
              Pantheon Drukkers

          Binding
              Binderij Voetelink Haarlem

          Paper
              Rebello 100g

          Font
              Fieldwork



          elisabethvansandick.com




          Let’s build a mountain


          Frederike Kijftenbelt

          Website design

          All around the world, scientists are working on new techniques that resolve our inconveniences, repair deficiencies, or simply entertain us. We generate snow when we want to ski on a green Alpine meadow, or we create two identical snowflakes to show that we are capable of something so exceptional. Science and technology as a toolbox for the shapable world.

              In the ongoing 'Let's build a mountain' Frederike explores the limits of the shapable, in which the Rhône glacier is a metaphor for the friction between the human urge to control and the resilient autonomy of nature.  

              With these factors in mind and really knowing how Fredrike goes about her work, I came up with the concept of having all the work displayed in such a way that every part is naturally linked and interweaved. The website then gives you a sense that there is no beginning or end – something Frederike plays with within her work and topics. But looking closer the website does consists of a grid of three columns, linking to every part of the site with gives you a grounded feeling. You never get lost but have room to lose controle.  


          ‘Anouk really listens and very quickly knows to unravel what you long for.’
          — Frederike Kijftenbelt



          Colophon Photography & text
              Frederike Kijftenbelt

          Concept & design
             Anouk de l’Ecluse



          frederikekijftenbelt.com




            La cigale et la fourmi


            Karianne Bueno

            Exhibition text design

            What does freedom really mean – as a concept, as something we all seem to aspire?
            About fifteen years ago, in her late twenties, Karianne her cousin E. chose to live her life as free as possible. She is a shepherd in the French mountains for most of the year and spends the rest of her time riding her horses or driving her camper van towards where ever she feels like going.

                La cigale et la fourmi, which lends its title from a famous fable by Jean La Fontaine about a singing grasshopper and a hard-working ant, is a long-term photography/text project containing a vortex of ideas. It is about the metaphorical place where our personal lives and western society collide, about commitment, feasibility and the human need to be seen in a world that continuously seems to move away from us.

                For this installation, which was part of Noorderlicht 2023, Karianne asked me to structure her texts. They consist of insights, thoughts, letters, conversations and stories all circling around the idea of freedom.  To keep intact the strolling of thoughts and also containing a conversation in which nothing is set in stone were the key elements for designing the texts. A playfull way of going about a somewhat abstract phenomenon as freedom.

                This first collaboration might be followed up by working more closely together on the book Karianne will get published somewhere in the future.



            Colophon Photography & text
                Karianne Bueno

            Concept & design
                Anouk de l’Ecluse 

            Installation photos
                Harry Cock
               


            kariannebueno.com




            A Horse Dressed Up Like A Zebra


            Eva van Ooijen

            Book design

            A designed podcast or an investigation in the form of a book? A Horse Dressed Up Like A Zebra contains research for 4 episodes of the podcast ‘Dear Dr. A.’ in which investigative journalist Andreas Nimmerdor tells the story of a fraudulent scientist, Dr. A., who claims to have made an archaeological finding in the Amazon region. Nimmerdor’s proposal leans heavily on an archive that was donated to him by the artist Eva van Ooijen. In return, she asks him to answer her question: ‘How to become a fraud?’.

                This publication leads you through a jungle of stories through different perspectives. Eva looks at the modern world like an archaeologist from the future, examining reoccurring themes and trends. Not taking things as truth but creating one. We delved into the world of Eva van Ooijen, and her Dr A. and shaped her ‘artistic research’ project.


            ‘By far the most beautifully designed podcast proposal ever published...’
            — Anton de Goede editor-in-chief VPRO podcasts



            Colophon Text & story
                Eva van Ooijen

            Concept
               Anouk de l’Ecluse
               Daphne de Vries

            Design
               
            Anouk de l’Ecluse  

            Edit
               Eva van Ooijen
               Anouk de l’Ecluse  

            Print
                Pantheon Drukkers

            Paper
                Munken Print White 115 gr
                Arena Smooth Ivory 90 gr

            Font
                Calluna
                Neue Haas Unica
                Helvetica Neue
                Courier Prime



            evavanooijen.nl




              Unlimited editions


              Maartje van Ringen

              Exhibition design

              'It's another soul, but it's the same thing.' A quote taken from a conversation Maartje had with Roberto concerning his cloned dogs.

                  Unlimited edtions is an ongoing research project by Maartje van Ringen about everything that contains within the world of animal cloning. By learning about the possibilities and challenges and by analysing different perspectives Maartje tries to understand how we relate to our pets and horses. For her research she traveled to the United States to meet with people who cloned their beloved cat, favourite dog and successful quarter horse. She also visited a commercial animal cloning company called ViaGen and their laboratories.

                  Searching for the right way of getting this complicated and multi-layerd topic across in her first exhibition, we came up with the concept of transforming the space into an Animal Cloning Visitor Centre. Here you can stumble upon and dive into all the aspects that come when wnating to clone your animal. The scientific, philosophical, human, religious and unavoidable dark side of this new way of dealing with live and death.



              Colophon
              Photography
                  Maartje van Ringen

              Concept & design
                   Anouk de l’Ecluse

              Edit
                  Maartje van Ringen
                  Karianne Bueno
                  Anouk de l’Ecluse

              Installation photos
                  Theo van der Meijs



              maartjevanringen.com






                AK/A


                Co-founder Karianne Bueno 

                Brand & website design

                / The world is so much bigger than you think. If you think you understand it, you haven't understood it.

                   AK/A is a small-scale platform for conceptual reflection founded by designer Anouk de l'Ecluse and photographer Karianne Bueno. AK/A aims to expose the thinking behind (photographic) work of its participants. With practical assignments and in an open atmosphere, we sharpen insights into the professionals own work. They learn to speak substantively about their work and get inspiration to create new work, or to breathe new life into existing work. AK/A provides inspiration, research strategies, guide selecting and editing of work, advice in ways to present the work and where this migh take place including helping to write (promotional) texts or grant applications. Besides the meetings, every other week we organise a talk/lecture/artist talk/studio visit/tour with professionals who can inspire the group of artists.

                    The hunger for opening up the worlds of different artists, to cross intersect all kinds of professions and inspire artists was the start of AK/A in 2023. Their first participants entered the worlds of podcastmakers, writers, philosophers, artists and sociologists, and vise versa. 



                ColophonConcept & design
                     Anouk de l’Ecluse 
                   

                ak-a.nl