Henk Elenga/index

Being one of the founders of studio Hard Werken in the late Seventies, Henk Elenga is best known as an extremely unconventional graphic designer. In fact this is only one of his many trades. He doesn’t consider himself to belong to the graphic world. Having started as a painter and art photographer, he developed into a versatile and intuitive creator of all kinds of applied images. He feels at home making videos as well as furniture, corporate identity, graphics and TV imagery and hates to be categorized. His work is a chain of surprises, sometimes even to himself. He likes to live and work on the edge of uncertainty. He sold all his belongings and moved to California just when Hard Werken became known as a group of innovative designers, to start the studio’s ’LA Desk’ and to discover new objectives for himself - learning to be a chef, maybe. There, among other things, he became a successful lamp designer and manufacturer. Elenga’s constant curiosity and unawareness of the differences between disciplines have turned him into a unique personality and an inspiration to many designers. Because of his ability to generate ideas before anyone else does, he can be considered a designer’s designer. Those who know about his work, try to keep track of what he does. On the other hand he is not very well-known outside design circles, because he doesn’t really care about that. This publication presents an overview of thirty years of his work as an artist, photographer, designer and organizer. The book itself can be considered his latest project. For Henk Elenga, it has been another new challenge.

Henk Elenga/index

Being one of the founders of studio Hard Werken in the late Seventies, Henk Elenga is best known as an extremely unconventional graphic designer. In fact this is only one of his many trades. He doesn’t consider himself to belong to the graphic world. Having started as a painter and art photographer, he developed into a versatile and intuitive creator of all kinds of applied images. He feels at home making videos as well as furniture, corporate identity, graphics and TV imagery and hates to be categorized. His work is a chain of surprises, sometimes even to himself. He likes to live and work on the edge of uncertainty. He sold all his belongings and moved to California just when Hard Werken became known as a group of innovative designers, to start the studio’s ’LA Desk’ and to discover new objectives for himself - learning to be a chef, maybe. There, among other things, he became a successful lamp designer and manufacturer. Elenga’s constant curiosity and unawareness of the differences between disciplines have turned him into a unique personality and an inspiration to many designers. Because of his ability to generate ideas before anyone else does, he can be considered a designer’s designer. Those who know about his work, try to keep track of what he does. On the other hand he is not very well-known outside design circles, because he doesn’t really care about that. This publication presents an overview of thirty years of his work as an artist, photographer, designer and organizer. The book itself can be considered his latest project. For Henk Elenga, it has been another new challenge.