Note: this text was taken from the website www.tentrotterdam.nl, following the 2016 exhibition on the Hard Works collective. http://www.tentrotterdam.nl/show/rotterdam-cultural-histories-8-hard-werken/ "The striking A3 format, the anarchic design averse to all the typographical rules in force at the time, the large role for photography and a group of contributors from mainly the visual arts and literature that changed per issue, immediately characterized this new initiative as an obstinate, elusive but above all Rotterdam phenomenon. The magazine gave a lot of space to Rotterdam writers and poets: well-known is the prepublication of Jules Deelder's book about the Rotterdam boxer Bep van Klaveren. It also commented on Rotterdam's urban planning and architectural developments, especially against the 'new bitchiness'. The magazine became the mouthpiece of a dynamic metropolitan, international culture. But even more than its content, the magazine was characterized by its specific design. The inside was black and white, the covers in exuberant colors. Slanted texts and photographs, drawings and collages, dozens of typefaces in one issue; everything was used interchangeably in a unique design that developed into a new "style. There was also a lot of focus on photography. Many participating artists developed into what in the mid-1980s was called the Rotterdam School of (staged) Photography. Advertisements in the magazine were also designed according to the same unorthodox principles. The permanent core consisted of Gerard Hadders, Rick Vermeulen, Tom van den Haspel, Henk Elenga, Kees de Gruiter and Willem Kars. At the time, the latter was also responsible for the Graphic Workshop of the Rotterdam Art Foundation, where the magazine was printed. The magazine's initiators also founded the design agency Hard Werken in 1980. Initially they worked mainly for Rotterdam cultural institutions, later also for clients in the rest of the country and abroad. Famous was their series of posters for International Film Festival Rotterdam from 1984 to 1994. Hard Werken was of great significance for the cultural self-esteem of Rotterdam. The many artists associated with the magazine penetrated nationally and internationally. The magazine seemed to herald a new cultural élan that definitively liberated Rotterdam from the image of the dull, culture-poor port city in the 1980s and 1990s."