What language does The Hague speak?

Eighteen residents of The Hague, each with a mother tongue other than Dutch, shared a self-chosen or self-written text during The Longest Night at the Central Library, presenting it in both their native language and Dutch. For this occasion, we were commissioned to design a book bundling all these texts.

The event was held again in 2026, with new participants and new texts. We were once again asked to create the design.

Since the event fell on the longest night of the year, we based the design on the theme of day and night. The cover shows the moon as it appeared that evening. To emphasize the distinctive sounds of each language, we highlighted the vowels in a contrasting color.

In the layout we used only gold and a deep, vibrant blue. These colors symbolize the contrast between day and night, as well as between the mother tongues and Dutch.

We paid special attention to the distinct features of non-Western languages like Bengali, Chinese, Armenian, and Dari-Arabic, crafting typography that blends harmony with visual consistency.