Het Bezoek poster, De Roovers & Muziektheater Transparant

Poster for Dürrenmatt’s Het Bezoek (Der Besuch der alten Dame; Engl.: The Visit), a production by De Roovers & Muziektheater Transparant, Antwerp-Borgerhout, 2018. The poster was designed by Tom Hautekiet.

On 29 April 2020, the Flemish graphic designer, illustrator and musician died unexpectedly at his family home. Hautekiet, better known as Kiet, was only 50. On the website of his alma mater, Sint Lucas Antwerpen, he’s honored as “one of the most important standard bearers of contemporary graphic design in Belgium and far beyond”. In an obituary for the Eye blog, Jan Middendorp comments: “For many years he designed the ever-changing communication of experimental theatre company De Roovers. […] Hautekiet became internationally known as the designer of Belgium’s largest music festival Rock Werchter”. See more of Kiet’s work on his studio website as well as on typo/graphic posters.

The inscriptional capitals are from Aichel, František Štorm’s typographic interpretation of the Baroque Gothic architectural style, originally designed for a UNESCO memorial plaque for a church built by Jan Santini-Aichel on Zelená Hora, Czech Republic. Used without the lowercase letters, which “behave like immature counterparts of the upper-case” (Storm), Aichel has similar monumental-yet-animate qualities as Albertus, another typeface that evolved from bronze plaque lettering.