Introduction

00:00:07

My name is Harald Dunnink. I'm a designer and I run a design studio here in Amsterdam called Momkai, I’m also the co founder of The Correspondent, and in both cases I am the creative director.

00:00:21

We try to do different kinds of projects. We view it as if we can bring that energy to something that is positive these are projects that I can stand behind. I think like, okay, this is something that is worth my time.

Oncode Institute

00:00:37

At some point we start talking with a group of scientists that wanted to start a new cancer research institute in the Netherlands, and they viewed it more as a virtual institute. And in the end we created an a name: Oncode Institute.

00:00:55

Nowadays when we view a logo design we always want to talk about the payoff. In this case, it's almost war rhetoric, so, “the war on cancer” which means that if you get sick or the cancer wins that you are a loser. So we tried to find a different angle, and we thought like, it's a lot about decoding. So maybe it's better if we talk about outsmarting cancer.

00:01:18

So we created a whole logo animation that also shows this way of coding. Um, what we showed there is that it's always in movement, always changing. It's a collection of diseases that manifests itself always different in every patient; so the more we understand it on an individual level, the better we can treat each individual. So you always try to think about the end user. So how can we benefit everyone involved?

The Correspondent

00:01:53

The Correspondent is a journalistic medium, we call it mostly like a social journalistic medium. We try to redefine what news is, and how it gets made and how it gets paid.

00:02:05

On a higher level, everyone understands that this whole rhythm of breaking news is very stressful: it's very focused on incidents, it's dividing us more. Is it really the most important thing that we should be talking about? Climate change was never breaking news. So, we thought if you have a phrase like that, ”unbreaking news”, it can have these different layers of meaning.

00:02:31

So, the logo’s based on my own handwriting, so, to give that personal touch. And it's also a way to express what we see happening on the platform itself, because rather than following stories we say you follow a person, a correspondent, and that person has an interest or an obsession where he or she talks about. And we embraced subjectivity.

00:03:00

In November of 2018, I'm really focused to expand into the English language, to try to focus on the challenges and problems of our time that are very often transnational. So, something like data privacy or climate change, that's not a Canadian problem or Dutch problem. And our ambition is to see if we can be a little part in that solution.

Conclusion

00:03:30

So, one of the items here in the office is a little statue by Joost Swarte that always had a very, uh, profound impression on me. Because it's, you see on the illustration, we are squeezing the earth and we are taking more than we are giving back. I think that's very important for us as designers, as creatives, that we put our energy into projects that's, that help other people or that can inspire other people, um, rather than just making money with money. So, that little statue is for me a... like a real life representation of that philosophy.