corporate story

Delft, the early 1990s. Jeroen van Erp, Theo Wolters and René Bubberman have just graduated from the Industrial Design department at TU Delft (Technical University Delft). Young and enthusiastic, they threw themselves into freelance assignments. The three men share a passion for results-oriented design. And a fax machine. Around that fax machine, they decide to join forces. Combining their separate portfolios resulted in a thick folder of work, and meant that they could take on a wide range of assignments. The new collective quickly grew to include graphic designer Paul Roos and computer graphics specialist Erwin Zwart.

In 1992, the five of them started to operate under a single name. As designers, they in any event have one thing in common: they are not interested in superficial 'design', but they design products in a structured way which are realisable. Because things are really being 'made’, they choose the name ‘Fabrique’. A French word: it not only sounds more chic, it actually means ‘fabric’ and ‘structure’.

In the early years, their order portfolio consists of work for various - extremely diverse - clients. Talked-about CD covers for the cult band Hallo Venray, alongside major assignments for NS (Dutch Railways). Theatre posters for Freek de Jonge alongside interior design work for ING bank. Business-to-business alongside entertainment. Graphic design alongside industrial design. In the early years of Fabrique, these were still wholly separate worlds…

Content is king

Netscape 1.0 - the very first Internet browser with graphic possibilities - was launched in 1994, just as Fabrique received its first order to design a website. Website creation involves bringing together the knowledge and experience of Fabrique in various areas. Our experience with graphic design, resulting in a clear layout of the webpages. Our knowledge of monitor pixels from the computer graphic field. And not forgetting our experience of designing user interfaces, user-friendly products.

A number of things come together on the World Wide Web. ABN Amro approaches Fabrique with an order for a website. And not because they are so impressed by the layout of the ING bank site, but because Fabrique also works for the VARA broadcasting network. After this, Sony music calls. Not because they saw the CD sleeves for the 2 Meter Sessies, but because Fabrique also works for ABN. Business-to-business and entertainment - up to that point two completely separate worlds - meet one another on the internet.

Business and pleasure suddenly need one another. Customers and potential customers have to be new at the website with interesting ‘content’, as it is referred to in the fast world of the internet. One golden rule soon applies to websites: content is king. And this is a starting point which Fabrique can work with like no other design studio.

It looks like it sounds

Apart from the websites, Fabrique continues to work on a wide range of assignments. The music industry is one of its main clients. Fabrique makes CD covers for a wide range of artists and musical styles; from the first country CD by Albert West to the strange rare grooves of Wild Onions.

In 1997, Fabrique displayed the CD covers in a retrospective exhibition. The title of that exhibition said - and still says - a lot about Fabrique's design approach: ‘It looks like it sounds’.  You have to be able to ‘hear’ what the content is from the sleeve, the packaging, the design. Not the style of Fabrique, but the content determines the end result. Work takes place on a design on the basis of this content. Content is king.

Artists, engineers & storytellers
At the end of the 1990s, Fabrique grows rapidly. The Industrial Design department at the Technical University Delft remains an important source of new staff. In addition, many designers flood in from various art schools. The structural approach of the academically trained industrial designers sometimes leads to friction with the ‘free’ creativity of the designers from the art schools. But more often it results in surprising solutions. Academia and art schools; this makes Fabrique into a unique collection of artists, engineers and storytellers.

Thanks to the rapid growth, a new structure is needed. Fabrique starts to work in teams. These teams are put together in such a way that artists, engineers and storytellers are represented in each. Contact with the customer does not take place via account managers and traffic managers, but via project leaders who have also taken a design or communication course. This keeps the lines of communication between the client and the designers short. And makes Fabrique a very open company.

Complexity

Around the turn of the millennium, the internet bubble bursts. Many houses of cards collapse. But while the internet cowboys and trendy-but-superficial designers give up the ghost, Fabrique continues standing tall! In fact, totally against the flow of the economic downturn, all the departments of Fabrique continue to grow. Fabrique is not an empty bubble which can burst, because Fabrique has always worked on the basis of content. On its own strengths, with its own capital.

Fabrique’s role - and that of design studios in general - does change in the new millennium, however. The assignments become more complex, and clients demand more and more of a design studio. Design doesn't end with the supply of a design drawing or templates for a website. Design is increasingly about thinking along with the client. Helping the client think strategically about complex problems. Helping them think about form and content. About identity and communication A role which suits Fabrique perfectly.

Working for large consumer brands such as Albert Heijn also provides new insights. The brand identity becomes increasingly important in the design process. Following on from ‘It looks like it sounds', 'design follows personality’ becomes the new creed. Fabrique can bring structure in large and complicated projects, with the brand personality as starting point. It doesn't matter whether the result is a website, a building façade identity or a house style. Or a website, a building façade identity and a house style. Fabrique has traditionally been strong in the integrated application of the various design disciplines.

Amsterdam

In 2007, Fabrique celebrated 15 years since its establishment. With more than 85 employees, Fabrique has grown to become one of the largest and most well-known studios in the Netherlands. With a full award cabinet and a wealth of experience. With major clients such as Essent, ThiemeMeulenhoff and TNT. But alongside these, there are still smaller, more alternative customers, such as pop venue De Effenaar and Lowlands Festival. This ensures that Fabrique’s curiosity and ‘young guns’ mentality - always its strong points - are retained intact.

This same curiosity brings Fabrique to Amsterdam. In February 2007, it opens a new department in the heart of the creative city. In order to be closer to some customers, to access new sources of employees and to broaden its own horizons. From the start, the Amsterdam department is a cross-media one, with no distinction between graphic and new media assignments.

The borders between graphic design and new media are also definitively breached in Delft. The various teams have combined into two cross-media departments, in which the artists, engineers and storytellers can just as easily develop a new house style for Essent as develop a campaign website for Heineken.

The future

Fabrique wants to progress. Fabrique wants to remain sharp. And even get sharper still. In the early years, Fabrique allowed itself to be carried along on the waves, often surprised by its own success. Now Fabrique wants to determine its own course, guide the developments, and cause things to happen. Shifting paradigms with designs which are 'most advanced, yet acceptable’, as Raymond Loewy put it in the last century. Because Fabrique wants to continue making work that gets talked about in the future.