🗺️ About
Studio Legenda is where serious, functional design, meets wit and humour. It's where information comes to adorn your house or laptop cover.
Around 2018 I released an image onto what was then Twitter (RIP), of a map I had been working on: The Dutch Highway Metro Map. It took off.
And I was swamped by news media and people wanting to buy it. That is how Studio Legenda was born: From an idea for map that went viral, back when that meant something.
Studio Legenda is the brainchild of me, Sebas van den Brink. I'm a designer from Groningen, the Netherlands. An avid fan of trains, planes, automobiles, and everything else design-related, you'll find my interests reflected in what we offer here at Studio Legenda.
We are based in the most beautiful city of the Netherlands. We pride ourselves on good, trusting, customer service. We're not fast, but we strive to be good. On giving something great to receive and unpack, something beautiful to look at. Something to stare at and wonder and wander about the details.
There is at least 1 person working here (that's me! Sebas!) Perhaps Studio Legenda will grow, I know there is a lot of "we" around the website. Maybe the universe will provide and Studio Legenda will find its audience. We are focusing on beautiful Europe, mainly.
We also do commercial work, if interested, get in touch.
If you want to get more philosophical, read on.
"Si le monde était clair, l'art ne serait pas." If the world were clear, art would not be necessary.
Albert Camus wrote those words in his book The Myth of Sisyphus. We have to imagine Sisyphus happy, eternally rolling this rock back up a hill, only for it to roll back down again.
Every new design project is something similar. You start from scratch, only carrying the experience of all the projects that came before. And yet, this tour up the mountain will be somehow different from the one before.
And I relish the challenge.
Now, if the world were clear, art would not be necessary. Luckily, it isn't clear and we need art to help guide our way. Art is everywhere. Even in the tools you hold and the house you live in. Though it may not always seem that way, especially nowadays.
You see, design is also an art, which also has a clear philosophy: Guide the viewer and help them navigate the world. Meanwhile, imbue a sense of personality into whatever it is that the viewer is using.
Sometimes, this philosophy is disturbed and twisted in order to maximize profits or encourage people to replace their things quicker. Planned obsolescence, anyone? It's a scourge.
A "legenda" is the Dutch word for key, or legend, of a map. Which, itself, helps the viewer understand the abstracted world of a map. It, too, can be seen as a piece of art. And, if done well, something that makes the world more clear.
