Nook is a magazine about interior architecture published by BNI and AiNB, two organisations who represent interior architects in the Benelux. Each issue has a theme that is examined from different angles in the articles.

In the summer of 2021, Thierry Somers, was appointed editor-in-chief and art director of Nook magazine. With its content, Nook seeks to inspire interior architects and expand their horizons. Some changes in the formula of the magazine were introduced to make Nook more international, visually arresting and treat the readers to more ‘eye candy’. Besides interviews with leading interior architects and designers, Nook features interviews with visual artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, philosophers, video game designers, VR designers and curators. 

Each issue has a theme, such as Digital, Transformation, Architectural Drawing, Stairs, Japan, Maximalism, and Transparency. We conducted extensive interviews, including with individuals such as Elizabeth Diller (Diller Scofidio + Renfro), Patrik Schumacher (principal of Zaha Hadid Architects), Kjetil Thorsen (Snohetta), Kengo Kuma, Sou Fujimoto, Claire Wilcox (Senior Curator of Fashion at the V&A Museum), Florian Idenburg (SO – IL), Flores Prats among others.

Okhuysen is one of the leading fine wine merchants in The Netherlands. The company commissioned Studio 200% to restyle their 35-year-old magazine, Vinée Vineuse, and their exclusive pre-sales brochures for various wine regions including Burgundy, Italy and the Rhône Valley.

A wine enthusiast and graduate from the Wine Academy as a vinoloog, Thierry Somers, has always been an avid reader of Vinée Vineuse. In the articles of the magazine the Okhuysen team takes the reader on a wine journey. They recount the stories of their travels to wine regions, encounters with winemakers, wine tastings and discovery of new wines.

We proposed a more editorial look and feel by making the magazine more contemporary and visually appealing without losing sight of the retail aspect of the magazine: to sell more wines. Also we introduced some lighthearted humour in the headings, photo captions and cartoons for the columns in the magazine. Since the restyling there has been a substantial increase of subscriptions to Vinée Vineuse.

Currently, we are working on the new branding of Okhuysen including the corporate identity, wine cases and boxes, and the delivery trucks. We have successfully launched a new logo (slides 2 and 3) which forms the basis of the company’s new branding.

Art direction for ‘Sla’ – a Dutch vegetarian magazine. Beginning of 2000, vegetarian cuisine had an image of dull, uninspiring food, consumed by tree-hugging, liberal types. The editorial team of ‘Sla’ thought otherwise. They wanted to show that without meat or fish you could present creative, tasteful and healthy dishes. The magazine was filled with recipes and dishes that were easy to prepare and a number of vegetables were reintroduced such as turnip cabbage and black raddish. The look and feel of the magazine had to be inviting, modern, easy to digest with a light colour palette and a lot of white space on the pages. For the typography to be delicate, two hairlines and the typefaces Helvetica Neue Light Extended and Bembo were used throughout the magazine.

200% is an arts publication focusing on the lengths to which artists go for their art. For the stories, the artists are followed during their creative processes and interviewed in-depth to understand the very essence of what drives them. Thierry Somers is the founding editor and art director of the publication and its website. The first issue was published in 2006 and since then 200% has featured over 100 leading artists, curators, museum and gallery directors, including Marina Abramovic, Laurie Anderson, Gilbert & George, Steve McQueen, John Currin, Alex Katz and Luc Tuymans. To date, five print editions of 200% have been published, the latest as a hardcover edition. The upcoming issue will be an artist’s book, ‘Blackhouse’ by Matthew Day Jackson.

British GQ, approached us to do the art direction of a design section, Create Britain, for their magazine. The section is a survey of emerging and established talents in the realms of architecture, design and photography that are shaping Britain’s current society. We also designed a custom-made geometric typeface that should be assembled like building blocks.