Vision

At Studio Dumbar we divide our projects into two fundamental categories: visual branding and free spirit. A mix of projects in both categories creates the ‘electricity’ we are looking for with our creative team. It’s one of the aspects making Studio Dumbar a source of creative power to clients and an attractive work environment for talent.

Visual Branding

More and more businesses discover the strategic and commercial relevance of design. So what’s the best term for describing the crucial role of design in business and branding? We invented the term Visual Branding. This is design beyond the logo, beyond the static idea of a corporate identity, beyond technical terms like ‘multi-channel’.

Visual branding defines the personality of a brand and translates it into a holistic, integrated ‘visual language’. It means a shift away from strict rules, causing uniformity. Instead, visual branding ensures that a brand expresses a consistent, attractive personality anywhere, anytime, anyplace.

In the fall of 2007, strategy director Tom Dorresteijn will publish a book about Visual Branding, providing analyses and case studies of brands around the world.

Free spirit

Some projects don’t focus on strategy but on pure, 100% design power. Studio Dumbar calls these ‘free spirit projects’. Here, the designer has only one challenge: to see how far his or her creativity can go. Most of the assignments in this category come from organisations based in arts and culture.

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About Studio Dumbar

Gert Dumbar established Studio Dumbar in 1977. Right from the start, the Studio stood for top-notch design, employing the talents of individual designers to create powerful design solutions.

Our work is known internationally. This has lead to many publications, awards, exhibitions, workshops, lectureships and even chairs at universities and design colleges all over the world. Another result of our international outlook is a joint venture in China.

Studio Dumbar’s design approach is truly without borders. That shows in our hiring policy. Although clearly rooted in the Netherlands, we have on average, 5 different nationalities working in our staff of 30.

The 5 ingredients of

Studio management

• Electricity in the creative group:
  with the right mix of character and background,
  ’talents only’.
• Understanding of business and brand strategy:
  connecting design to business (visual branding).
• Individual responsibility:
  supporting individual talent instead of turning
  people into employees.
• Informal and serious:
  the Studio has an informal atmosphere but we
  make no compromises about our work and are
  used to taking on large and prestigious projects.
• Ambition for quality:
  our business model is based on ‘quality first’ -
  we want to be the best, not the biggest.

The result is an extraordinary mix of clients and projects from a wide variety of backgrounds:
- from small national companies to big international
brands
- business, government, NGO’s, arts and culture
- free design projects and projects focused on
business and brand strategy (visual branding)

Studio Dumbar has always been able to attract talented designers and ambitious clients. This special blend of people, clients and experience perfectly reflects our aspirations. And most importantly: it works.