Profile
Henk van Assen graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Department of Graphic Design and Typography) in The Hague, The Netherlands, in 1989. After working several years as a graphic designer in Amsterdam, he came to the United States, where he received his M.F.A. in 1993 from Yale University.
He is founding principal of HvAD, a multi-disciplinary design studio in New York City. In that capacity, Mr. van Assen has worked on many projects in print, environmental, and screen-based media, ranging from book design to branding to web design and way finding systems. Clients include Acquavella Galleries, NY; Rizzoli, NY; MALBA, Buenos Aires; the GeGo Foundation, Caracas; the Guggenheim Museum, NY; the Museum of the City of New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; FotoFest Inc., Houston; the New York Public Library; Yale University Press, New Haven, David Zwirner Galleries, NY, and the Museum of Arts and Design, NY.
He was awarded multiple “AIGA 50 Best Books Awards”; several “AAUP Best Book awards”; the 2005 New York Book Show award; the American Association of Museums, Excellence Award, 2006; the Washington Book Publishers Design Effectiveness Show, 2008; and International Latino Book Awards, 2018. He has also been a juror for the AAUP 50 Best Books in 2000 and 2016.
In addition to his studio practice, since 1999, Mr. van Assen is a senior critic in Graphic Design at Yale University. Prior to this appointment he taught design at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas, at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He is part-time lecturer at Parsons School for Design siec 2012. Additionally, he has lectured internationally, most recently in Jinan, China and Tel Aviv, Israel.
He coauthored, with Daniel M. Olsen, Ranch Gates of the Southwest (Trinity Press, San Antonio, TX, 2009); and Jan Willem van Assen: Een Onstuimig Talent (Voerman Museum, The Netherlands, 2015). Other recent personal projects include a billboard for “Artists for PSA,” in New York City. And a typographic installation for the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bolzano, Italy
Degrees Held
MFA
Awards And Honors
Fifth Annual James A. Porter & David C. Driskell Book Award
2020
International Latino Book Awards
2018
Palestine Book Awards, Creative Award
2017
Royal Photographic Society
London, UK, 2016
Virginia Fields Memorial Book Award
2011
Washington Book Publishers Design Effectiveness Show
2008
American Association of Museums Excellence Award
2006
AIGA 50 Best Books Award
2005
New York Book Show
2005
AIGA 50 Best Books Award
2004
American Association of University Presses, Best Books Award
2003
Alice Davis Hitchcock Award
(Society of Architectural Historians), 2002
Boston Bookbuilders Guild, Best Books Award
2002
American Association of University Presses, Best Books Award
2002
AIGA 50 Best Books Award
2000
AIGA 50 Best Books Award
1999
Mitchel A. Wilder Award (Gold)
1999, Texas Association of Museums
Case Council for Advancement and Support of Education
1998