IdN – International Designers Network, Volume 15 Number 1, 2008
IdN (International Designers Network) is a Hong Kong-based international design magazine founded in 1992, distributed across more than 40 countries and widely regarded as one of the most influential graphic design and visual communication publications in the world. The magazine covers graphic design, illustration, typography, motion graphics and creative culture, with a strong focus on emerging and established talent from across the global design community. Volume 15 Number 1 (2008) is a double feature issue covering The Semiotics of Illustration and a Music and Images Special, with a bonus interactive DVD included.
Within this issue, pages 101 to 105 feature a multi-page editorial report on Dutch Design Week 2007, written by Petra von Mel and titled “Dutch Designers Buck Bleak Trend.” The article takes the theme of Dutch Design Week ’07 — “Design Works” — as its starting point, arguing that Dutch designers reject dystopian visions of the future in favour of pragmatic, human-centred and optimistic approaches to design.
Dutch Designers Buck Bleak Trend – The Article
The feature opens with a bold typographic spread introducing the article’s argument: that while Hollywood and popular culture tend to depict the future as a dark and chaotic place, the designers shown at Dutch Design Week 2007 in Eindhoven demonstrated that design holds the key to an ever-improving quality of life. The article profiles several Dutch designers exhibited at the event, using their work to illustrate the broader character of Dutch design — functional, conceptual, clear and never over-elaborate, yet always surprising.
Designers featured in the article alongside Bloomming include Michiel van der Kley, whose work is presented at the opening of the piece, and other participants in Dutch Design Week 2007 including Bart Hess and Angela Jansen.
Mireille Meijs and Light Facet
On page 105, the article profiles Mireille Meijs as one of the talented young designers whose work exemplifies the Dutch design spirit. The editorial describes Light Facet as a snowflake-like window shade with a poetic twist, and frames it as Meijs’s response to her instinctive urge to design objects that improve life. The article explains that the inspiration for Light Facet came from a friends’ gathering at her home, where sunlight was pouring through the window. Since she considers sunlight too beautiful to be blocked entirely by ordinary curtains, she developed a product that people can adjust according to how many rays of light they want to enter the room.
The article places Meijs’s design philosophy clearly within its Dutch context. She is quoted describing Dutch design as strongly conceptual, simple and clear, but always surprising — and noting that compared to other design traditions, Dutch designers tend to be very down-to-earth. The feature characterises her as a designer who finds solutions for different situations, driven by a desire to make things more beautiful and brighter.
Multiple photographs of Light Facet are shown across the spread, including large-scale installation views showing the product suspended from a ceiling in what appears to be an exhibition setting at Dutch Design Week. The images show visitors interacting with and walking around the installation, conveying the product’s physical scale and its ability to transform an interior space. Close-up photographs show the individual faceted, diamond-shaped leaves in detail, demonstrating how their geometry creates shifting patterns of light and shadow.
Publication Context
The article appears in IdN alongside coverage of Dutch Design Week 2007 as part of a broader editorial interest in the Dutch design scene and its global relevance. The framing of the feature — Dutch designers as optimistic pragmatists who use design to improve everyday life — positions Light Facet and its designer within a wider cultural narrative about the character and international standing of Dutch design.
IdN’s international distribution meant that this feature introduced Mireille Meijs and Light Facet to a readership of graphic designers, creative directors, art directors and design professionals across Asia, Europe, North America and beyond — audiences not typically reached by Dutch interior design or architecture publications.
Publication Details
Publication: IdN – International Designers Network
Volume: 15, Number 1
Year: 2008
Article title: Dutch Designers Buck Bleak Trend
Author: Petra von Mel
Pages: 101–105
Product featured: Light Facet room divider / window shade
Designer featured: Mireille Meijs
Company: Bloomming
Context: Dutch Design Week 2007, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Category: International graphic design and visual culture magazine
Why this feature mattered
IdN’s international reach and its audience of creative professionals across Asia and the wider world made this feature particularly significant for Bloomming. The article placed Light Facet within a serious editorial discussion about the philosophy and character of Dutch design, presenting it not simply as a product but as the outcome of a considered design process rooted in everyday observation and a genuine desire to improve life. Being featured in IdN alongside other notable participants in Dutch Design Week 2007 gave Bloomming visibility in an international creative community well beyond the Netherlands, at a pivotal early stage in the studio’s development.
