Name : BLEND Date of Premiere Issue : April May June 2010
Editor-in-Chief/Founder : Perre van den Brink Creative Director : Perre van den Brink / Wouter Vandenbrink Art Director : Anothercompany / Joachim Baan Publisher : Theo Paijmans
Frequency : Quarterly Country of Origin : Netherlands Website :blend.nl/
Contributed by : Perre van den Brink
An new spring, a new international issue, a new office. Here at BLEND we now overlook the IJ river in Amsterdam. Just ten houses away from where Michiel de Ruijter, Holland’s most famous admiral, used to live in the Golden Age, this was the place where Dutch merchants started the world’s first multinational company in 1602. They would sail out to sea on a mission to trade in herbs and spices from the Far East. Even though there is much discussion about their ethic values, their undertaking spirit of trade remains inspiring to this day. It eventually led to the Dutch concept of ‘VOC-mentality’ (named after the VOC, the Dutch East India Company) which is used to describe entrepreneurs.
Throughout the years Dutch people became known for exploring without boundaries. Some scientist researched why the Dutch tend to do this and concluded that countries like the Netherlands have an open view because they are not stuck between mountains or oceans. It seems our flat little country literally makes us look further.
This could be one of the reasons why Dutch people play such an important role in the global creative industry. Over the past few years a new generation of Dutch creatives have stood up, inspired by the success of established names such as Viktor & Rolf, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, Rem Koolhaas and Anton Corbijn. They have the same fearless mentality as those trade guys backs in 1602, to just reach out to the world and see what happens. Their combined VOC-mentalities resulted in a new group of people aiming for the top. They are THE NEW DUTCH SCHOOL.
We cannot overlook the same IJ river as Michiel de Ruijter once did in the 17th century. Technology has brought us far and buildings that have been built in the meantime, from the 19th century train station to the 2007 public library, now block our view of the other riverbank. Nonetheless, we will continue to expand our vision. BLEND has established itself in the Benelux over the past five years, and it is time to discover new territory. We have decided to spit our magazine in two separate releases. A bi-monthly BLEND Paper for the Benelux market and the magazine you are reading right now: an international quarterly distributed worldwide.
