Designer · Netherlands · 1928–2019
Wim Crouwel
Wim Crouwel (1928–2019) – Dutch graphic designer and typographer, co-founder of Total Design, creator of the New Alphabet typeface (1967).
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About the designer
- Lifetime
- 1928–2019
- Country
- Netherlands
Wim Crouwel was born in 1928 in Groningen and died in 2019 in Amsterdam. From 1947 to 1949, he studied at Academie Minerva in Groningen, and later attended evening typography courses at the school now known as Gerrit Rietveld Academie.
In 1963, he was one of the co-founders of Total Design studio, where Friso Kramer also worked. For many years, he was the visual designer of Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 1967, he created the experimental New Alphabet typeface, acquired for the MoMA collection in 2011; his other known typefaces include Gridnik. He designed the Dutch pavilion at Expo ’70 and postage stamps for PTT (1976–2002).
From 1985 to 1993, he was director of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. He received the Piet Zwart Award and the Anton Stankowski Award (both in 1991), an honorary doctorate from Delft University of Technology (1994) and the Gerrit Noordzij Prize (2009). In 2019, Stedelijk Museum presented an exhibition dedicated to him, “Mr. Gridnik” – a nickname referring to his Gridnik typeface, which accompanied him for many years.
Key designs
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New Alphabet
experimental typeface, MoMA
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Gridnik
