It’s not everyday you get to design something for… a wall in your neighbourhood! The foundation ‘De Zoek naar Schittering’ hosted ‘Geluk op Zuid’, a poetry competition for primary school kids in the Southern part of Rotterdam, the city where I live. One of the lucky winners, nine-year-old (!!!) Dieudonné, got an expert of her poem on a building in the city and got to create the design.

To really keep the focus on the words I created a design that highlights the natural elements in Dieudonné’s verse. To make sure the poem would blend into the environment I used the same shades of blue and red as the building, something that worked out really well. Artist Ricardo van Zwol got this beauty on the actual wall and it's so cool to see how it turned out! I'll write a full project with some more details soon.

A quick and very non-professional translation for my non-Dutch readers:

“When the sun sets
and the night begins
then it is
the wind that sings.”

If you want to take a look yourself: you can find the poem at the crossing of the Beverstraat and Slaghekstraat in Rotterdam Feijenoord. Not from around? You can see the wall up close in this video by local television station, TV Rijnmond.