Jan Van Toorn was born in Tiel, Netherlands, on 9 May 1932. Jan started his career as an apprentice at the printer Mulder & Zoom in Amsterdam. In 1949, He attended evening design classes at the Amstredamse Grafische school and in 1950 he continued his studied at the Instituut vow Kunstnijverheidsonderswijs (later Gerrit Rietveld Academy) in Amsterdam. Since1957, Jan Van Toorn worked as a freelance graphic designer. His clients including Hausemann & Hotte in Amsterdam, Instituut vow Voedingsonderzoek TNO in Zeist, Stedelijk van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, the Dutch Ministries of Culture and Public Works, the Dutch PTT, Rosbeek Printers and 010 Publishers. He has won several awards such as Werkman Prize (1965 and 1972), the Piet Zwart prize (1985) and the Athena award for career excellence. (New York, 2004) His methods and concepts create very radical posters. He twists the problem into the language that made us hard to forget his posters. He studies and analyzes the complexity of the problem makes his design very strong.
A video profile of Jan van Toorn — one of Holland’s most influential graphic designers. This profile is one of 100 video profiles of Dutch designers, fashion designers, and architects from the Dutch Profiles series. Dutch Profile: Jan van Toorn was produced by Submarine, Femke Wolting & Bruno Felix and directed by Geert van de Wetering.
More about Jan van Toorn: Jan van Toorn, Critical Practice by Peter Biľak Jan van Toorn: The World in a Calendar