Robert Deodaat Emile ‘Ootje’ Oxenaar (1929-2017) was a Dutch graphic designer whose work changed how people interact with public design, particularly through stamps, currency, and institutional print work. He is best known for his Dutch banknote designs, work celebrated for its inventiveness, technical precision, and imaginative use of new technologies.
From The Hague to national design leadership
Born in The Hague, Oxenaar studied at the Royal Academy of Art, graduating with honours in 1953. He went on to lecture there between 1958 and 1970. His career spanned design, teaching, and public service. From 1978 to 1992, he was Professor of Visual Communication at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), where he helped train the next generation of Dutch designers.
His best-known commission came from De Nederlandsche Bank. Between 1964 and 1987, he designed two series of banknotes for the bank. They stayed in circulation until the Netherlands adopted the euro in 2002, and they were praised internationally as some of the most beautiful and hardest-to-counterfeit money in the world. The notes were far from traditional. They combined modernist form, bold colour, and playful detail, and turned everyday transactions into small visual experiences.
Stamps as statements
In 1970, Oxenaar designed the Dutch summer stamps, a project that challenged conventional design methods. Commissioned by De Nederlandsche Bank, the project pushed at the edges of print security and graphic expression. Working with a team of printers, bank specialists, and a university laboratory, Oxenaar looked at how linear structures and engraving techniques could be applied to printed matter, stamps included.
Experiments with a computer-controlled drawing arm, run at Eindhoven University of Technology, brought digital processes into what had always been manual craft. Oxenaar picked 17 final structures for the stamp series. Some appeared in the 1968 PTT annual report, a rare and sought-after publication today.
The stamps met some public scepticism at first. People questioned whether they would appeal to a mass audience, and how they would actually be produced. They went on to outsell the previous year’s designs anyway. The PTT later released 1,500 limited-edition black and white prints of the stamp structures, cementing their place as both artworks and design artefacts.
Design in service of the public
Oxenaar’s impact reached well beyond stamps and currency. He designed the giro payment card, giro pass, and cashier’s cheque for the Postcheque and Giro Service. From 1976 to 1994, he was head of the Art and Design advisory bureau at the Dutch Postal and Telecommunications service (PTT/KPN). There, he oversaw commissions and shaped the visual identity of one of the Netherlands’ largest public organisations.
He was also an aesthetic advisor to institutions including the Dutch National Bank, the Ministry of Justice, and the Danish Ministry of Transport, work that cemented his role as a steward of Dutch design quality.
Recognition and legacy
Oxenaar was a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) and an honorary member of the Association of Dutch Designers (BNO). His work is held in the Nederlands Archief Grafisch Ontwerpers (NAGO) in Utrecht, and in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. His career is documented in full in RDE [Ootje] Oxenaar: Designer and Commissioner by Els Kuijpers (010 Publishers, 2011).
Oxenaar’s career was built on curiosity, experimentation, and a real sense of public responsibility. Whether he was designing money, stamps, or institutional documents, he brought the same care to every job. What stays with me most is how much beauty he found room for in things people barely notice, like a stamp or a banknote. That is not a small thing to leave behind.
