Individual Project

For nearly five years Studio Joost Grootens worked on the design of the 2015 edition of the Van Dale's Great Dictionary of the Dutch Language, called the 'Dikke van Dale' for short.

For the design Studio Joost Grootens worked on several levels. Most time was spent on optimizing the functionality of the dictionary. Colour is used as a navigational device within the articles. Studio Joost Grootens designed a new typeface that includes symbols and extra bold numbers to facilitate reading. Summaries are introduced for long definitions. These and other design decisions made it possible to get rid of lots of characters that over time had cluttered the pages of the dictionary, especially brackets. With the increasing use of emoticons in especially digital communication brackets have changed in meaning. Another addition to the interior of the dictionary were illustrations for words that are difficult to explain in language only. These illustrations were developed by Studio Joost Grootens as well.