About

Maartje van Nimwegen was born in Rotterdam and has lived in Delft, Haarlem, the Hague, Antwerp and Amsterdam. She graduated from Amsterdam’s Rietveld Academy in 2003 and now works as a freelance art director / designer. Her work revolves around people in different modern groups and communities and their common interests.
Her own interests include, but aren’t limited to: sausage dogs; Twin Peaks; musicals; water parks; gabber punk; brides (though she swears she’ll never get married); martial arts and Bas Rutten; Illuminati; the internet; Yayoi Kusama; Bohemian Grove; Voices; Herb Lubalin; cakes, candy and food in general; gangster rappers; dogs; dots; collectors and Chloe Sevigny.

These different flavours of life are influential to Maartjes work ,that focuses on art direction, graphic design and fashion. This combination of disciplines provides her with an eclectic portfolio. Maintaining a concept throughout the process is the most important aspect of the work she produces for her clients, including Marjan Pejoski (fashion designer); Coolpolitics; 5daysoff (music festival); De Optimist (digital cultural magazine); Voordekunst (crowdfunding website); Vodafone; Angelique Hoorn (agency for stylists & hair and make-up artists) and many more.

From 1994 to 1998, Maartje studied at a fashion school (Fashion and Clothing) in the Hague, graduating in design and styling; her graduation project focused on the squat and free party techno scene of that era. This is where her love of fashion began; it continued in Antwerp, where she was a pattern-drawing intern for Elke Hoste  and worked at fashion shows for the likes of Walter van Beierendonck and Jurgi Persoons. She has also interned for Dirk Bikkembergs, again in Antwerp, and at Amsterdam based window-dressing company Beekwilder.

While Maartje was working in the fashion industry, she increasingly felt drawn to methods of presentation, magazines and fonts, and so, from 1998 to 2003, she studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, specializing in graphic design. During this time she worked for Praktijk Buro (a project and communication agency). The combination of styling and design that she applied there inspired her to work with fashion in a more graphic sense. Maartje continues to work in the field of art direction, for photography as well as for other purposes, because she likes the process of developing ideas into art and making concepts give meaning to the visual.

Right now, Maartje works in a studio located in a beautiful old building in the centre of Amsterdam, where her father used to go to school as a teenager. Here, she is surrounded by three talented young creatives. Marlies van der Wel, Artur Schmal & Sandeman. Although this is naturally the perfect environment for her, working at glamorous assignments in foreign countries will not be refused.

Service with a smile!

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