Visitekaartje voor Dieperink & Co 1866 - 1939

This business card for Dieperink & Co was made by Bernard Willem Wierink; it’s a lithograph, so ink on paper, the kind of thing that gets made in multiples. The way the image is built up – the lettering and decoration – it looks like it’s been made up from lots of separate components, carefully arranged. I love the way that these small elements combine. It’s a bit like jazz: each shape, each line, is doing its own thing, but it comes together as a whole. See that curly, almost Celtic ‘D’ in ‘Dieperink’. It’s like a miniature painting in itself, that initial, all scrolls and curlicues. There’s a decorative border, which seems to me like lace, or jewelry. And then the Amsterdam crest is at the top, like a kind of official seal. The colors are muted – creams, greens, blues – but they add to the overall effect of quiet elegance. It makes me think of the work of someone like Hilma af Klint, the way that design can be an invitation to think about the world in different ways.