Happy new partner!

Please let us to introduce Sacha van den Haak, a valued member of our design team for the past year. We are excited to announce that we are deepening our collaboration with Sacha by adding him to the management team as a partner. To get to know Sacha better, we have asked him 5 questions.

What do you do?
“I am the Head of Design at Lava. As a Head of Design, I am mainly busy with the conceptualization and aesthetics of projects.”

What did you do before this? 
“In 2008, I started at Studio Dumbar, where I collaborated on developing, for example, the identity of the central government, City Marketing Delft, and Dutch Design Awards.
After 3 years, I founded Kok Pistolet together with Floris Schrama. This caused a national and international stir with various identities for cultural institutions, with the icing on the cake of receiving the prestigious ‘Golden Ratio’ Prize for stimulating creativity.
After that, I was self-employed for three years, mainly in the cultural field. 

During my time at Kok Pistolet and as a self-employed individual, I had the opportunity to work at the intersection of visual communication, crowdsourced design, and generative design. At Lava, I have continued exploring and expanding upon these concepts in a collaborative and stimulating setting. This is reflected in the campaigns of festivals Gaudeamus and SPRING and the brand identities of EKKO and St. Joost.” 

What cool things have you made at Lava? 
“As one of the first projects we developed together was Machinerie. Unfortunately, beyond us, that never got to fruition, even though the entire style had already been executed. In it, we found an excellent way of working and a renewed way of looking at brand identities. 

As mentioned before, we also created the new identity for EKKO this year. Something I have wanted to do since I started working for EKKO back in 2013. I am very excited about how we tackled this with the team and the innovation the design system brings. And in the same vein, St. Joost Art Academy. Although this identity has yet to be rolled out (hopefully this year), visually and conceptually, I am very fond of it.” 

What do you look forward to most when you start your day?
“The sweet smell of design wafting through the air as you walk in, gently guiding you forward, is a real treat!”

Which film describes you best?
“The film that is closest to my heart is Labyrinth. Hopefully, they won’t reboot that one too. Probably they will. Who will take over the role of David Bowie? Harry Styles?”