Atelier Hugo Herrera Tobón is a boutique creative direction, editorial design, and visual consultancy studio with nearly two decades of international experience. Having operated from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Vilnius and Madrid, the firm specializes in cross-border visual identity projects, artist editions, and highly complex exhibition systems for the art, cultural, luxury, and institutional sectors.
Philosophy
The Atelier’s practice departs from aesthetic inertia, rapid consumption, automation, and homogeneity, unifying conceptual analysis, rigorous research, and artistic curation instead. This signature methodology—that moves entirely away from generic solutions, arbitrariness, or superfluous ornamentation—positions us as a reference for entities demanding maximum sophistication and discursive precision; productions where execution is thoughtful structure, restraint is rigour and identity is memory.
We operate with a meticulous sensitivity, where the human eye and analytical curation build visual statements of enduring permanence and distinct relevance to our time. Our choices are governed by the soft powers of typographic purity, structural clarity, artistic expression, and social sensitivity. Through these foundations, the studio creates thoughtful visual systems and spaces of clarity evoking coherence and transcendence: environments defined by the coexistence of a sharp visual language, critical thinking, and profound aesthetic impact.
Hugo Herrera Tobón
Hugo Herrera Tobón was born in Bogotá (CO) and relocated to Madrid (ES) in 2000, subsequently operating across New York (US), Ulaanbaatar (MN), Malabo (GQ), Athens (GR), Lisbon (PT), Amsterdam (NL), Vilnius (LT) and Kaunas (LT). Initially, he worked as an interviewer and producer for the agency IPS, generating cross-border socioeconomic reports for Fortune, Forbes, and Newsweek in dialogue with government officials and top executives. He then relocated to Amsterdam to pursue studies at the Rietveld Academie and assisted designer Annelys de Vet and industrial designer Vincent de Rijk before founding his independent studio in 2009.
Over nearly two decades of international practice, his work as a creative director and visual consultant has targeted the institutional, cultural, and luxury sectors. This portfolio includes identity, editorial, and spatial projects for the Fundación Casa de Alba (Palacio de Liria), Spain’s Auditorio Nacional de Música, La Fábrica, CAF (Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean), the General Consulate of Colombia in Madrid, the Chief Science Office of Amsterdam & the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) for the Venice Architecture Biennale, the African Film Festival of Tarifa & Tangier (FCAT), the Ricciotti Ensemble, the Dutch National Youth String Orchestra, and universities such as the Rietveld, Radboud (Nijmegen), TU/e Eindhoven, Nacional de Colombia, Braunschweig (HBK) or the music conservatory Arturo Soria in Madrid.
Parallel to these commissions, his work as an artist, curator, and editor explores the intersections of design, politics, and contemporary art. As a core member and designer for the sound-art collective 7090, he co-curated performative projects including the Amsterdam Fringe Festival prize-winner PAND7090 and Abstraction Park 7090 touring in NL, UK and South Africa. His site-specific installations have been exhibited at De Appel Arts Center and Mediamatic, where he curated the Bogotá pavilion for the Amsterdam Biennale. This trajectory expands into participatory social cartographies, such as the Mintropplatz public space reassembly for the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, and his ongoing role as an editor and curator for the publishing platform Subjective Editions.
He published the Subjective Atlas of Colombia and curated its large-scale exhibition for Artecámara in Bogotá. Furthermore, as an international guest artist for Kaunas 2022 — European Capital of Culture, he published the Subjective Atlas of Kaunas and curated the exhibition inside Kaunas’ Central Post Office building for the Modernism for the Future (MoFu 360/365) curatorial programme.
Contact
t. (ES) +34 659 205 348
t. (NL) +31 613 720 781
Calle Hortaleza 1044º – 128004 MadridSpain
Previous Studios
2020—2022«A2 Business Centras»Švitrigailos g. 11CLT-03228 VilniusLithuania
2018—2020«Gele Gebouw»Zomerhofstraat 80, 1st floor3032 CH RotterdamThe Netherlands
2011—2018«Zeemanshuis», studio 1.06Kadijksplein 181018 AC AmsterdamThe Netherlands
2008—2011Kostverlorenstraat 21 – 31052 GT AmsterdamThe Netherlands
Clients & Partners
Art Spaces & Galleries
Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá — Artecámara(Bogotá, CO)
Casco Art Institute(Utrecht, NL)
Dutch Pavillion — Venice Biennale(Amsterdam / Venice, NL / IT)
De Appel Art Center(Amsterdam, NL)
Espacio Odeón(Bogotá, CO)
Kröller-Müller Museum(Otterlo, NL)
Galerie Mor Charpentier(Paris, FR)
Gallery RAM — Berry Koedam(Rotterdam, NL)
Gallery SIGN(Groningen, NL)
La Usurpadora(Puerto Colombia, CO)
La Casa Encendida(Madrid, ES)
Mediamatic(Amsterdam, NL)
Palacio de Liria − Fundación Casa de Alba(Madrid, ES)
Universities & Academic
Braunschweig University of Art — HBK(Braunschweig, DE)
Radboud University(Nijmegen, NL)
Rietveld Academie(Amsterdam, NL)
School of Applied Sciences(Düsseldorf, DE)
Sandberg Instituut(Amsterdam, NL)
Technical University of Eindhoven — TUE(Eindhoven, NL)
Universidad de los Andes(Bogotá, CO)
Universidad Nacional de Colombia(Bogotá, CO)
Publishing
I piccoli holandesi(Amsterdam, NL)
Subjective Editions(BE)
Institutional, Governance & NGO’s
Arbeit und Lieben(Düsseldorf, DE)
CAF — Development Bank for Latin America & The Caribbean(LATAM)
City of Amsterdam, Chief Science Office(Amsterdam, NL)
Dialogue Advisory Group(Amsterdam, NL)
Embassy of the Netherlands(Bogotá / Washington, CO / US)
General Consulate of Colombia(Madrid, ES)
Kaunas 2022 — European Capital of Culture(Kaunas, LT)
Film Production
Just a moment(Vilnius, LT)
Theaters, Music Halls & Festivals
Auditorio Nacional de Música(Madrid, ES)
Festival de Cine Africano de Tarifa y Tánger(Tarifa/Ceuta/Melilla/Tánger, ES/MA)
Frascati Theater(Amsterdam, NL)
Het Compagnietheater(Amsterdam, NL)
Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ(Amsterdam, NL)
November Music Festival(Den Bosch, NL)
Orgelpark(Amsterdam, NL)
Splendor(Amsterdam, NL)
Music & Performance
7090 ensemble(Amsterdam, NL)
Aitana Cordero — Stage Performer(Amsterdam/Madrid, NL/ES)
Conservatorio Profesional de Música Arturo Soria(Madrid, ES)
Controllar — Avant-garde Pop Duo(Amsterdam / Tel Aviv, NL / IL)
Corkestra(Amsterdam, NL)
Ensemble Lumaka(Amsterdam, NL)
Fuse ensemble(Amsterdam, NL)
Looptail ensemble(Amsterdam, NL)
Monoták(Amsterdam, NL)
Nieuw Amsterdams Peil ensemble(Amsterdam, NL)
NJSO — Netherlands Youth String Orchestra(Amsterdam, NL)
Peter Vigh — Composer & Saxophone Player(Amsterdam, NL)
Piano Duo Post & Mulder(Amsterdam, NL)
Ricciotti ensemble(Amsterdam, NL)
Independent Professionals, Services & Retail
Alena Alexandrova — Curator, Cultural theorist(Amsterdam, NL)
Care Catalist(Amsterdam/Bogotá, NL/CO)
Foodtura(Amsterdam/Bogotá, NL/CO)
Gallagher Audio Engineering(Amsterdam, NL)
Mercedes Guerberof — Psychologist & Psychotherapist(Madrid, ES)
Lemoine — flores(Madrid, ES)
Pharmacie de la Vie(Amsterdam, NL)
Saltamontes(Madrid, ES)
SYOU(Amsterdam / Medellín, CO / NL)
Grants & Awards
Stimuleringsfonds — Creative Industries Fund (NL), Starting Grant, «If we remain silent», research for art project & publication, 2024
Stimuleringsfonds — Creative industries Fund (NL), travel grant, internationalization, «29th International Book fair of Bogotá — FilBo, Dutch Pavilion», 2016
Kingdom of the Netherlands, Dutch Embassy in Bogotá & Washington, «Subjective Atlas of Colombia», 2015
Stimuleringsfonds (NL), travel grant, internationalization, 2015
Fringe Festival Amsterdam, Dioraphte Award — 1st prize, «PAND7090 — mobile gallery & pop-up performance», 2014
Ministry of Culture of Colombia (CO), international circulation grant for art and cultural agents, 2014
Copyright
Projects & images, all rights reserved © 2009-2026 Atelier Hugo Herrera Tobón
Colophon
Design: Hugo Herrera Tobón
Programming: Hugo Herrera Tobón, with Claude (Anthropic)¹. Thanks to César Caudillo² and to Jonathan Sachse Mikkelsen (previous website)³.
Photography: Hugo Herrera Tobón, Marit Bijkerk (assistant), Bas Wiegers,
Blanca Guerrero.
Typography: This website uses the typefaces Neuzeit S by Arthur Ritzel and LL Bradford by Laurenz Brunner.
² For encouraging us to use the artificial intelligence we have spent so many years discussing and questioning, and for giving us access to Claude at first without having to invest in something we were not quite convinced by and still question.
³ For programming in such detail the website we are saying goodbye to, which aged so gallantly and lasted ten years, and for all the hours of detailed code and reviews that laid the foundation of this new website.
Disclaimer
Atelier Hugo Herrera Tobón works mostly with originally conceived images, but also with images that are in the public domain or under a creative commons license. We always try to credit involved parties but would you wish to be credited for uncredited or wrongly credited work, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Privacy
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Internships
We are not accepting applications at the moment, but you are welcome to get in touch to be considered in the future.
















