Faculty

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

MFA