Daan Rietbergen on personal projects, going freelance and what he learned at Studio Dumbar

After five years of learning his craft at Studio Dumbar come mid-2019, Daan Rietbergen launched his own independent practice in his home city of Utrecht in order to pursue his own commercial projects and continue his artistic explorations. His personal projects Nespor and Vimeto capture his love for geometric, grid-based forms. They have made imposing, graffiti-like appearances in multiple European cities and received widespread attention. We caught up with Daan to find out about everything he’s been up to. EM: Hey Daan. Can you tell us about your background as a designer? DR: I’ve been interested in typography since I was 14 years old. It started off with painting graffiti for years and after that, I studied Graphic Design at Gerrit Rietveld Academy and AKV St. Joost. Over the past five years, I worked at Studio Dumbar as a visual designer and I’m working as a freelance designer for a few months now. I try to maintain a good balance between designing visual identities and posters for clients and on the other hand personal typographic projects.