Hard Werken: One for All: Graphic Art & Design 1979–1994 [Paperback]

Hard Werken: One for Allis the first major publication on the work of the Rotterdam and Los Angeles–based experimental design group Hard Werken. Hard Werken formed in the late 1970s with an underground magazine of the same name (soon to be a collector’s item), and attracted fame in the 1980s as the riotous vanguard of Dutch design. Hard Werken finally folded in 1994 after a shotgun wedding to a Dutch packaging company.

Hard Werken’s anarchic aesthetic, which disregarded typographic conventions, characterized the group as a brash, elusive and distinctly Rotterdam phenomenon. This chunky book investigates Hard Werken’s legacy in Holland, LA and the UK, and addresses their contemporary significance, from the innovative ways that the group combined graphic and fine-art languages to their navigation of newly emerging cultural and commercial spheres.