Best Dutch Book Design 2000

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.

...Van Hinte heeft ervoor gezorgd dat het hoofdstukjes zijn geworden in een verbazend coherent verhaal waarvoor hijzelf de verbindende teksten schreef. Voorbeeldig.
JM in Druk # 7, January 2001, p. 8-11

Het boek geeft een goede impressie van de wandelende ideeenfontein die Elenga is zonder te pretenderen het fenomeen echt op papier te kunnen vangen.
NRC Handelsblad, October 6th 2000

'Het veranderde de manier waarop ik naar grafisch ontwerpen kijk.' Namelijk als een werk van vitaliteit. Die vitaliteit hebben Elenga, Van Hinte en alle andere medewerkers aan het boek uitstekend weten te treffen.
Gert Staal in Items, May 2000, p. 76