Jelle van der Toorn Vrijthoff

Jelle van der Toorn Vrijthoff -

Jelle van der Toorn Vrijthoff is currently the president of the prestigious AGI association (Alliance Graphique Internationale).

He received a BA Degree from the Royal Academy of Art and Design in 1966, an MA Degree at the Royal College of Art in London in 1972. He also studied Computer programming at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, working on the development of design simulation programmes and the first experiments in the field of artificial intelligence.

In 1973-1974, he was Research Fellow at the Experimental Cartography Unit in London working on the first computer generated oceanographic maps for the Royal Institute of Oceanography in the UK. In 1974, he taught at the Middlesex Polytechnic in London on the topic of instructional and information graphics, as well as a part time scientific illustrator. From 1974 to 1987, he was part-time professor at the Royal Academies of Fine Art in Den Bosch, Amsterdam and Rotterdam consecutively. From 1976 to 1982, he was Creative Director at the Government Printing and Publishing House in the Netherlands. During that period he participation in large scale public design projects for various government organizations, and was involved in computer generated typesetting and database publishing. From 1982 to 2002, he became the CEO and Creative Director of the Total Identity Group in Amsterdam, formerly known as Total Design. The group worked for multinational clients in the commercial sector and for various government divisions and ministries. A large number of public design projects was executed over the years.

He has lectured on numerous occasions in Great Britain, the United States of America, the Far East and Australia. His work is published in various international design magazines. His experience as a project director and design manager extends to large-scale design projects in the Netherlands, France, the Middle East and Hong Kong. He worked on the National Museum of Yemen in Sana’a for a period of 4 years.

Contact information

  • Jelle van den Toorn Vrijthof
  • Egelantiersgracht 512
  • 1015 RR
  • Amsterdam
  • NL