Studio Dumbar on how it encourages its team to find their voices as designers

Joining us from her home in Rotterdam for October’s Nicer Tuesdays was Liza Enebeis, creative director of the renowned Studio Dumbar.

Founded in 1977, Studio Dumbar currently consists of 19 creatives each experimentally pushing the way designers and audiences can interact with typography. The studio does this in its own work, but also as part of Dept, the leading digital network in Europe offering a full service in digital experiences.

Liza’s talk began by telling us a little about her character. The fact that she writes down “all of my processes” for instance, details of her podcast TypeRadio started 14 years ago (she’s a true veteran) and her large collection of books and hatred of libraries, “don’t give them [the books] back,” she says, “I’ve compared prices, it’s much cheaper…” Before leading on to tell the story of the designers at Studio Dumbar, through one particular project with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

Working with the orchestra for the past 14 years, Studio Dumbar began with its logo and has continued with promotional material for the “classical orchestra but with a very contemporary image”. Each poster for the orchestra is designed by a different in-house designer at Studio Dumbar, encouraging and allowing each designer to “find your way of talking as designer… your signature”.

This was the studio’s approach until this year as the studio took its learnings in motion graphics to create digital posters to actually react to the sound the orchestra creates. You can see the results and the rest of Liza’s talk above.