Bassline flyers / part 2
Paradiso (Amsterdam)
 
Between 1995 and 1999, we designed various posters and flyers for Paradiso, Amsterdam's premier rock venue. Paradiso plays an important role in the recent history of Amsterdam, and in Dutch counter- and rock-culture in general, so it is a real honour to have been involved with this place. It also has a rich history of graphic design (Martin Kaye’s amazing concert posters, to name one example), so we’re proud to stand in that tradition.

After creating a series of flyers for Paradisco (see Paradiso / Paradisco) and a template for a three-weekly program poster (see Paradiso / Program), we were asked to design a series of flyers for Bassline. Organizer Kees Heus (perhaps better known under his DJ name KC The Funkaholic) contacted us towards the end of 1996, asking us to design a series of flyers for a monthly hiphop night.

Thinking about a concept for a new series of flyers, we remembered that one of our friends (if we memorize well, it was in fact Cindy Hoetmer) usually perforated her Paradisco flyers, and put them in her Filofax organizer, as reminders of upcoming nights.
So the concept actually came to us quite quickly: a series of flyers that were already perforated, and had the same size as Filofax sheets, so that they would be ready to use.

This series ran from the end of 1996 to the end of 1999, during which we designed a few dozen of these flyers. In the beginning of the series, we printed the flyers in different metallic colours, and each time the back of these cards would carry a typical Filofax-style function: lined paper, ruled paper, squared paper, etc. These first flyers can be seen at Paradiso/ Bassline 1.
Later in the series, there was a sort of ‘silver period’, in which all the flyers were silver on one side, and carried a Filofax-like function on the other side. (We also started more and more to lose the Filofax functions, and were beginning to fill the backs with random drawings and snapshots instead). Four of these silver flyers can be seen here (front and back):







Towards the end the Bassline series, we got rid of the metallic inks altogether. We started experimenting with colours, found images and slogans, and also phrases that we wrote ourselves. A selection of these flyers can be seen at Paradiso / Bassline 3.

For Bassline, we also designed a couple of posters: see Paradiso / Posters 2. And from 1997 to 1999, we also designed a series of flyers for ‘Drum & Bassline’, a spin-off of Bassline; those flyers can be seen at Paradiso / Drum & Bassline.

We forgot to mention this in our previous entries about Paradiso, but there’s actually a really good book out there, called ‘Paradiso Posters 1968-2008’, dealing with Paradiso’s graphic design tradition. Written by Jan Dietvorst and Jan Hiddink, and designed by Max Kisman, the book features designers such as Martin Kaye, Pieter ‘Parra’ Janssen, Niels ‘Shoe’ Meulman, Max Kisman and ourselves. Published by De Buitenkant, Amsterdam (ISBN 978-90-76452-49-4).

Bassline flyers printed by Drukkerij Heijt, Amsterdam.