Joost Grootens designed his first book in 1998 and since then has focussed more and more on this aspect of designing, with a specialism in designing atlases. With his designs, he wants to rehabilitate the quality with which maps and atlases were historically designed and printed.

It was in the early 1990s that the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment published the supplement to the fourth report on spatial planning. This policy document achieved fame and notoriety under its Dutch acronym, Vinex. In its wake, hundreds of thousands of dwellings were erected throughout the Netherlands in what became known as Vinex districts. Sometimes eulogized, often vilified, they have always been a source of debate.

‘Form defined by the content’, according to this principle Joost Grootens designed stationery for the artists’ project ‘The Blue Home’. The backgrounds were variable, adjusting to and inspired by the content of the letter or the work of the artist(s) using it.