User:Hans Wolbers/sandbox

Lava Design Amsterdam Beijing

The Amsterdam based design agency Lava was founded in 1990 by Greet Egbers (Mijdrecht, Netherlands 1964) (who left the company in 1997) and Hans Wolbers (Oss, Netherlands 1965).

From the very start Lava focused on editorial design, mainly for a practical reason: a monthly returning client pays the bills = less headache to keep the studio running. Lava soon became one of the leading ‘Dutch Design’ agencies. Lava designed various cult magazines like Blvd and music magazines like OOR. Their approach to magazine design was seen as ground breaking, innovative and unique. In 1998 Hans Wolbers was awarded a Mercur ‘Art Director of the Year'.

Working on magazines took about half of the work-time and covered the salaries and rent. This business model allowed Lava to work the other half of their time to expiriment for cultural clients with less budget. So besides editorial design the studio worked for Amsterdams famous pop venues like Paradiso, Roxy and Melkweg, and made award winning designs for the internationally renowned Impakt New Media Festival in Utrecht.

In the following years Lava broadened its focus to brand design. Based on the principle of editorial design: 'same title, new content every month’ Wolbers developed a unique vision on brand design: ‘Dynamic Identities’. Lava took brand design to the next level and created brands that could grow along with an organisation.

From 2004 to 2009 Wolbers was vice president of the Dutch Designers Organisation BNO.

Early 2004 the book '97 Years Lava’ was published (ISBN: 9789063690656). An overview of almost 15 years of their works. The title '97 years’ is an hommage to the sum of all the working years of all the talented designers who joined Lava over those years.

In 2002 Wolbers was elected member of Alliance Graphique International. During his membership he co-organised an AGI conference in Amsterdam (2007) and Rotterdam (2020). (Wolbers decided to leave this organisation in 2023 to broaden his horizon again, beyond graphic design).

During his first AGI conference he met Reza Abedini, a famous Iranian designer. A visit to Tehran brought insight in the very rich visual culture of Iranian design. As a result Lava published a book 'New Visual Culture of Modern Iran' (ISBN 9789063690977). An exhibition in Amsterdams political debate centre 'The Balie’ followed soon and Reza Abedini was awarded ‘Prince Claus Award’ from the Dutch Queen Beatrix. Reza Abedini shortly joined Lava as designer in residence at Lava Studio in Amsterdam with the main goal to develop a non-western view on visual design.

In 2010 Lava was awarded ‘European Design Agency of the Year’. Soon after Lava started cooperations with local design firms in Seoul, Moscow and Istanbul. As a result of these cooperations Lava was co-founder of Moscow Design Museum and created the award winning branding for Istanbul Bienale 2013, and the rebranding of one of the largest internet providers of South Korea; Gabia.

In the same year Lava opened an office in Beijing. The focus in Beijing was not to export ‘Dutch Design’ but instead to cooperate with young chinese designers to learn about a different visual culture.

After celebrating 25 years aniversary of Lava in 2015, Hans Wolbers decided to focus on other aspects within design such as education, experience design and architecture. In 2017 the Beijing office was handed over to Céline Lamée, who still is the owner and creative director up to today.

The Amsterdam office experimented with various management teams, and in 2017 the management and ownership of the Lava Design office in Amsterdam was handed over to Frank Smolenaers and Anton Lamberg. A few years later Lars Terhorst and Sacha van den Haak joined the management of Lava Amsterdam.

In the same time Hans Wolbers focussed on teaching and lecturing at various Universities under which Scuola Polytecnica Design In Milano. In 2017 he featured in an italian documentary about design; DESIGN IS A VERB, by Leftloft.

An interview with Hans Wolbers can be found on TypeRadio

Over the years Lava's work was exhibited at many places. Lava gave workshops, lectures and teached on conferences and designschools around the globe: Jakarta, Bandung, HongKong, Shianghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Beijing, Milan, Barcelona, London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berlin, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Cape Town, Mumbai, Copenhagen, Augsburg, Vienna, Bologna, Salzburg, Taipei, Bangkok, Antwerp, Paris, Rotterdam, The Hague, Tehran, Groningen.