Nienke Kersten's Portfolio Site

Welcome to my portfolio website!

With this booklet I made an attempt to re-design 'Hoofdlijn', a Dutch magazine for amateur Draught-players. I wanted to make the subject of draughts look more exciting and appealing. And a good excuse to make a square booklet! 15 x 15 cm, made in 2011.

For a fictive exhibition in The Hague I designed these program-booklets made with Ascii-Art, of which I am a great fan. I also made the map of The Hague in Ascii, it's on the spread in the middle of the booklet. 13,5 x 19,5 cm, made in 2011.

This booklet is called Parallel Paces. It's about the beauty of nature, and about changing your pace, which can help you see nature's wonders more easily and more clearly. 11 x 6 cm, made in 2011.

This was a - handdrawn - sketch for the Parallel Paces booklet you see on the left. I myself love the drawing of the stem of the platanus-tree (n˚ 5). 18 x 10 cm, made in 2011.

I did my internship at the Amsterdam-based graphic designer Hansje van Halem. She has a particular interest in making booklets, as do I. I had a great time there and learned a lot about the world of graphic design. This booklet is my internship report. 16x10 cm, made in 2011.

This typeface I designed to be used as start-capitals. For the design I was inspired by glass marbles. Made in 2011.

Here you see all the characters of the font one by one. The font is called 'Knikkerkapitalen', by the way, because 'knikker' is the Dutch word for glass marble.

This is a sample-booklet I made to promote my new type-design. It's a funny little booklet in which I also used the elements of the font to make decorations in the booklet. 13,5 x 19,5 cm, made in 2011.

'The Book of Floaters' is a book I made for my final exam-project. It's about floaters: small protein-structures that float around in one's eye fluid. 17 x 24 cm, made in 2012.

Floaters look like semi-transparent threads and/or spots that track your sight with a slight delay. They mostly become visible when you stare at the blue sky.

This is a movie I made as a study for my final exam-project. Filmed in HD, made in 2012.

This is a movie about a poem written by Jan Arends. Filmed in HD, made in 2010.

These are some envelopes I designed for an art history-project. It's not conceptual, it's just something I really wanted to do, which is making patterns.

These are all the envelopes together.

I really love making photograms! In my opinion they have an aesthetic quality because of their simplicity.

The photograms on these 2 pages are an experiment made for a poster design. 10 x 15 cm, photographic paper.

This was a design I made for the Dutch postal stamps. 4 x 3 cm.

Dutch postal stamps only have a 1 or 2 on them nowadays, depending on the weight of the letter/card/etc.

This is my business card. 8,5 x 5,5 cm.

CV

2008-2012: Royal Academy of Fine Arts, The Hague. Graduated in 2012.

2010-2012: 'Practicum Musicae': a course in vocal jazz, taken at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

2011: (january-march) Internship at Hansje van Halem, in Amsterdam.

2010: 'Marketing Management Binnen de Kunsten', a course (in Dutch) about marketing in the arts.

2007-2008: Worked 1 year at BrandReality, a consumer-related marketing agency in Amsterdam.

2001-2007: St. Ignatiusgymnasium in Amsterdam. Graduated in 2007.

Exhibitions