‘21st Century Heraldry’ is an ongoing project by Rens Muis and Pieter Vos of design agency 75B. They design contemporary coats of arms for cities, incorporating a range of city-specific symbols, logos and icons. In the TextielLab, they translate these designs into woven coats of arms, which show the cities’ current heraldry.
In 2001, the designers made their first coat of arms in poster form for their hometown Rotterdam. Since 2019, they have woven a series of coats of arms in collaboration with the TextielLab for cities including Amsterdam, Hamburg, Naples, Munich, Rome, Turin and Paris.
To find out what makes a city distinct, the designers visit it several times. They look for characteristic symbols and icons that tell the city’s story; they take in the sights, talk to locals and visit museums and libraries. Designing a coat of arms takes about a year. The designers then bring their graphic work to the TextielLab where they translate it into a fabric. They always use satin weaves, which produce a lustrous material and an even structure and colour. Getting the colours right in the woven textiles is extremely important because they are so typical of the icons and symbols used.
Rens Muis and Pieter Vos first met as students at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. In 1997, they founded the 75B graphic design agency together. Their designs include the house style for the International Film Festival in Rotterdam and the Van Abbemuseum. They have been working with the TextielLab since 2019 on the ongoing and autonomous project ‘21st Century Heraldry’.
‘Masterly, the Dutch in Milano’, Palazzo Francesco Turati, Milan, 7-12 June 2022
