Michiel Schuurman

Michiel Schuurman lives and works in Amsterdam. For the Biennale internationale de design graphique, he is presenting an in-situ installation of his printed patterns in the Espace Bouchardon. He graduated from the graphic design department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy of Amsterdam in 2002. As a graphic designer he has specialized in typography, pattern design and poster design with a bold and iconoclastic approach. 

After his graduation, he became known for his work as a graphic designer, where he challenges the restrictions and the communicative value of the medium the boundaries between the second and third dimensions that are blurred and combined with original typographic statements. By radically playing with the chromatic prism, Schuurman creates new colour combination schemes. Many of his creations ar in public collections, including the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. His illustrations have been presented in publications such as Wired magazine and the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. 

His graphic work follows a natural, scientific or historical logic. Algorithms, geek culture, natural phenomena, where historical models are invoked in his design process in a novel way. 

A divine mandala, fungal growth, viral exponentiality can be considered as starting points. Schuurman takes the essence of these logics and applies them to new contexts by superposing, by twisting them and adding his touch of combining bold colours with alienating patterns.