Tim Tijink

OQAD

Identity, vinyl design

2024

Exploring the dimensions of space and time through a graph-based identity for Loek Frey’s OQAD label. By combining motion, transparent materials, and gray scales, we mapped out Frey’s conflicting relationship with the minimalistic and the complex.

The Brand Identity

Interview w/ Brent van den Elshout, 2024

Ain’t the new kid on the block: Ozon Studio is a young practice, backed by years of experience

Although they didn’t know it at the time, growing up, Tim Tijink and Brent van den Elshout were interested in the same things. Music had a great influence on both their lives – when Tijink was creating album covers while in primary school, van den Elshout was making his own compilations of electronic music and crafting custom artworks for them. These interests in music and design grew over time, and when they met in 2020 and began collaborating, they became common strands that brought both their creative worlds together. Having worked as freelancers for many years, they first joined forces to create an identity for Minimal Collective, a music, art, and technology-focused publication and events platform co-founded by van den Elshout. What followed was a slew of collaborations, until they decided to set up shop together. And so, they founded Ozon Studio in Amsterdam, where Tijink is the Designer & Art Director, while van den Elshout oversees creative direction, strategy and communication.⁠
⁠ In a sense, the studio was long in the making. Launched in 2024, Ozon is where the duo showcase their recent projects, and also carve out a space for the kind of collaborations they’re looking for. Sifting through their work, it’s not hard to see that music and art – and culture at large – continue to inspire them, and the projects they shape. Together, they’ve created identities for many festivals, organisations and clubs, each dipped in the kind of clarity, grit and honesty that only comes with years of experience. We sat down for a conversation with the two Co-founders to learn why starting Ozon was the “logical next step” for them, how applying a “cultural lens” helps them to grasp deeper meanings behind brands, and what the future holds for the young, yet experienced studio.⁠ Read more...

RADION Amsterdam

Identity, website

2023

Identity, website, and campaign for Radion Amsterdam, one of Amsterdam's longest standing club venues. In close collaboration with the team behind the club, we created a new identity that revolves around the multi-layered architectural structure of the building. The mission was to shed new life within the iconic ‘R’ symbol that has been around for almost a decade while unifying the variety of events that take place at the cultural venue. Through a grid-based system, an animated visual language, and a holistic web-experience, we built a future-proof fundament for the years to come while staying true to first-day recognizability.

Amsterdam Dance Event x Rijksmuseum

Event identity, graphic design, art direction

2023

Event identity for the official Amsterdam Dance Event Opening Event in collaboration with Rijksmuseum, happening October 18 2023 at the Rijkspassage w/ Theun Mosk, upsammy and Valentina Magaletti. ‘Breathe, Walk, Die’ is a theatrical performance consisting of three acts that bring the exhibition Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen at Rijksmuseum to life.

Amsterdam Dance Event

Tram, graphic design, art direction

2023

Full wrap design for the 2023 Amsterdam Dance Event tram, which has been cruising around the streets of Amsterdam prior to and during the event.

Sonus Festival

Identity

2023

Identity re-fresh for the 10th anniversary of Sonus Festival, one of Croatia’s most iconic beach festivals happening right on the shores of Pag Island. In close collaboration with the team behind the festival we developed a new identity system that fully evolves around the original Sonus symbol, introducing a grid based design system, a fresh set of bright colors inspired by Croatian natural elements and new rules for typography and motion. All forming the base for a modern visual identity which will be used in the years to come.

COLLIDE24

Interview w/ Brent van den Elshout, 2023

Amsterdam’s Minimal Collective explores the power of multidisciplinary community building

As with many terms in art, minimalism is subject to various interpretations that are often strongly influenced by personal experiences and associations. In their recently-published revisionist history of minimalism’s transformative rise musicologists Kerry O’Brien and William Robin trace minimalism in music back to psychedelic counterculture. The book weaves together the story of Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt and others who developed their very own concepts of minimalism in music. It ends with a chapter on futures, including an interview with drone band Sunn O))) or an essay by Philip Sherburne on ambient jazz. After all, minimalism remains hard to grasp and define, and has been the matter of constant reinterpreting. With a razor-sharp interplay of geometric and organic shapes, Minimal Collective’s immersive online platform is the gate to the Collective’s very own and forward-looking approach to the term.

In 2020, Brent approached graphic designer Tim Tijink on Instagram, fascinated by his visual work. This was also the moment that Chris Scholz (Strategic Creative, Curator) and Laura Krabbe (Managing Editor) joined the team. “From this point on our core really began to take shape and our plans took off. We jumped on a phone call that same day to talk about the ideas and things started from there. Minimal Collective already existed back then but under a completely different visual identity and output. Back then there were some thoughts on how to proceed with it and transform it into something new and more professional, which made the new identity one of the key pillars. Step by step we built the philosophy of the rotating wheel, the grid, the logo, the typography into the system we’re working with today,” Tim remembers. Read more...

Jonge Harten 2023

Campaign, identity

2023

Campaign design and identity re-fresh for Jonge Harten 2023, a nine-day festival for young people filled with theater, performance, dance, workshops and more. Themed ‘Stay with the Trouble’, this edition is an invitation to pause at times when things are challenging. Jonge Harten 2023 takes place from 17—25 November throughout the city of Groningen. Check jongeharten.nl for the full program.

Colin Benders Invites, Melkweg ADE

Artwork, poster

2023

Visualizing ordered chaos in type for Colin Benders Invites at Melkweg during this year's Amsterdam Dance Event w/ Blawan, French II, JakoJako, Nadia Struiwigh and Boris Acket

The Brand Identity

Interview, 2022

Tim Tijink makes the minimal maximal in his type-led identity for Amsterdam’s Minimal Collective

Together with Brent van den Elshout, Dutch designer Tim Tijink has worked with Minimal Collective, an Amsterdam-based electronic music collective, on the creation of their energetic, contrasting and engaging identity. A mix of designers, audiovisual creatives and electronic music, the visual identity for Minimal Collective needed to match the eclectic nature of their foundation, as well as their avant-garde approach. With this spirit in mind, Tijink took the somewhat less conventional path of basing the identity on an oval grid, rather than a squared one. Continually in motion and interacting with one another, the individual ovals are representative of the interconnected network of creatives behind the scenes, opting for Gradient Type’s PolySans – utilising its futuristic, characterful tone of voice – as the hero typeface to dance within the lively graphic language.
“Each circle represents a different ‘spectrum’ in which the collective is operating in and across,” Tijink tells us, listing music, art and technology as the core disciplines. “By connecting multidisciplinary artists and blending the spectrums, Minimal Collective is constantly renewing music, art and nightlife experiences,” he adds, recalling the use of the brand’s 3D-to-2D wheel used across the identity alongside the typographic expression throughout. “The ‘wheel’ is formed by filling rasters within the grid,” Tijink explains, “what first was just a 2D grid will now slowly (visually) transform into a 3D wheel,” he adds, using this movement as a digital realisation of Minimal Collective’s varied practice and network. “When fully connected, the pieces of the wheel form the logomark of the brand,” Tijink tells us, a logo that has a beautifully timeless tone; reminiscent of classic, Swiss mid-century logomarks. Read more...

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