Woodland Studio

Hello there, we are a modest creative studio specialised in visual communication. Clear, unpretentious communication — that’s our goal. We offer original solutions to clients from every part of the world. We believe in simplicity, storytelling and creating fans.
Woodland Studio is founded by Els Gielen and Joël Neelen — employing the principles of visual communication and a natural outcome of our common professional aspirations for relevant photography, graphic design, typography and copywriting.

We have a soft spot for portraiture that captures the personality of the subject. We also love nature — shooting landscapes forces us to get outside and find the beauty around us. Sometimes this means discovering places right in front of our eyes that we just never noticed were beautiful before. Other times this means exploring new places and getting out on a hike or nature walk.
In addition we are passionate about logo design, the challenges of rebranding and typography. We can create your logo from scratch or update your existing brand. We love clean, straightforward and unique designs. We also enjoy crafting corporate identities, editorial design and illustration. We create and layout magazines, from initial concept development to art working. And we do (photo)book work.
We also present White Wølf,our own photo gallery. White Wølf gives us the chance to show a series of photographs of our choosing by which we aim to test our self-management, research, critical and creative looking skills. All photos are also for sale.

Woodland stories

Our journal of inspirations

In 2016, I started creating and publishing a free printed magazine, but after four editions in two years it came to an abrupt end because I no longer found sufficient financial resources. In 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, it started to itch again to share something about our sources of inspiration and interests with a larger community.
Woodland Stories tries to fill this void.

Woodland Stories explores our personal interests and introduces in-depth stories about contemporary visual artists, illustrators, outstanding craftsmen and fascinating photographers which motivate us to find creative inspiration. Clear, comprehensive information in which the reader makes a conscious choice to deepen. It contains the art of both emerging and established creators from around the world.

Woodland Studio brings you stories from a real world in a down to earth perspective. It's a way of inspiring others through storytelling. The purpose of our stories is to introduce a wider audience to these inventive, innovative and imaginative people you may not have heard of and who may motivate you to achieve your dreams and goals as they inspired us.

We hope you'll keep reading and find your own inspiration which will very likely carve out your own path to creativity — even when the tanks feel like they might be running a bit dry.

Although it's a silent wish to open a gallery with art works of these inspiring creatives — some kind of Woodland Museum or ‘Rooms of Wonders’ — we have to put up with a collection of their splendid books.

Joël Neelen
Graphic designer and storywriter

ARTIFICIAL LIFE

The Strandbeesten by Theo Jansen (1948) are world famous! Everyone knows his work, but few know the artist. The themes in his work are evolution, life and amazement. Starting in 1990, the Dutch kinetic artist experiments with mechanical engineering techniques to craft skeletons. He is father to the Animari beach creatures or Strandbeesten, which means 'beach beasts' in ... Read more

DO YOU REMEMBER, JONATHAN?

One of the most important Swiss comic artists of all time, Cosey (1950), was part of a new generation of European comic artists who emerged in the 1970s, making stories for more mature audiences rather than just children. Cosey broke new ground with his philosophical travel stories, for example the full-blown series ‘Jonathan’, he started in 1975. When the cartoonist ... Read more

BALANCE IN A POLARISED WORLD

With renowned series and projects, the ‘Black Balloons’ may be one of the most famous ones of the Lithuanian artist Tadao Cern (1983). As someone who studied architecture, physical spaces and geometrical precisions are familiar terrains. Tadao Cern has a very original approach to the art world. Thanks to his training, he has specialized in creating imposing facilities immersive ... Read more

ARCTIC HEROES

For decades, Iceland’s best-known photographer Ragnar Axelsson (1958) has been traveling throughout the remote regions of the Arctic. With unrivalled mastery of black and very white, he captures the elementary human experience in nature on the fringes of the habitable world. Although he has trekked through glacial storms, fallen through rifts and awakened on ice that’s ... Read more

SEEN FROM ABOVE

The impressive thing about George Steinmetz’ (1957) photographic work is its unique perspective — from above. National Geographic's top expedition photographer admits that even he can get a bit unhinged by the dizzying heights he attains in the man-in-the-flying-machine contraption — a motorized paraglider — he uses to photograph places inaccessible by traditional ... Read more

VISUAL SPLENDOR

Unquestionably China’s best-known and most controversial filmmaker, Zhang Yimou (1951) introduced China’s cinema to the world with his distinctiveﬁlming styles. He is most famous for his artistic fims in thelate 1980s and the early 1990s and his martial arts fims since 2004. The former cinematographer directed many beautiful intimate gems such as Red Sorghum, ... Read more

OUT OF THE WOODS

Roman Klonek, born in Poland (1969) during the communist period, is an internationally known representative of contemporary print art. His childhood was strongly influenced with comic and cartoon culture. Therefore he has a spot for old fashioned cartoons, especially Eastern European styles. While he studied Graphic Arts in Düsseldorf during the 1990s, Klonek discovered ... Read more

LIFELIKE WOOD SCULPTURES

Bruno Walpoth (1959, Italy) can practically turn wood into flesh. The Italian artist has a knack for creating haunting, incredibly lifelike sculptures carved out of wood. His works somehow manage to capture the expressiveness in a person’s eyes and the body’s fleshy curves. Having grown up with a lineage of grandfathers and an uncle who were distinguished woodcarvers, Walpoth has ... Read more

CHOREOGRAPHED BREATHTAKING PLASTICS

German artist Nils Völker (1979) creates artworks that lie in the intersection of technology and art through the means of cheap materials and customised electronic parts. He's a media artist based in Berlin whose creative path led from communication design to the use of physical computing. His moving objects are interactive wall-mounted installations mainly made out of ordinary ... Read more

TOUR DE FORCE

TOUR is a music project of Belgian musicians Stijn Segers (1977). His collective alter-ego takes place in songs, videos, graphic design, photography, performances and installations. TOUR's musical oeuvre tells stories about places, dealing with real and unreal situations. Reality and fiction often meet in the middle using field recordings and incorporates elements of the local folk music ... Read more

THE ART OF PATIENCE

What brings together a world-renowned French photographer, an animal film director, a French travel writer and an Australian singer-songwriter in one story? A film shot in the Tibetan highlands! The French director Marie Amiguet (1986) and Vincent Munier made a documentary in the heart of this virgin and inaccessible valleys, one of the last sanctuaries of the wild world. She filmed her ... Read more

NICHT DADA, SONDERN MERZ

Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) has long been revered as the maker of poetic, elegiac collages culled from the detritus of post-World War I Germany, and as the publisher of a journal, but his role as a graphic or advertising designer is often overlooked. Kurt Schwitters produced his first abstract collages in 1918, which he called ‘MERZ’, a fragment of the word Kommerzbank. He continued ... Read more

THE MAN WITH NO NAME

No Hollywood star has had such an illustrious career as Clint Eastwood (1930). The ever-wincing film legend has reinvented himself many times over the course of a career that now stretches back over 60 years. Up to the present day the American film actor, director and producer is well known, respected, and admired for past achievements. Eastwood earned his fame as the ... Read more

WILD WORLD OF ANIMALS

The world‘s fauna is fascinating, often astonishing, and incredibly diverse. The books by the German illustrator and children's book author Dieter Braun (1966) can fascinate children and adults alike due to the solid aesthetics of the superb illustrations. Braun specialises in creating various pieces of art, with a large focus around the natural world. His very specific style, ... Read more

THINK A HEAD

You have thinkers and you have doers. The Belgian creative artist Frits Jeuris (1975) clearly belongs to both categories. It can by no means be said that there is no thinking in Jeuris' 'head'. On the contrary, he thinks while you talk to him. He sees concepts flying by behind his eyes and with a few strokes on a blank sheet he draws simple sketches that immediately make clear what he ... Read more

MASTER OF THE MOMENT

The Arc de Triomphe — the star attraction in the Place de l'Étoile in Paris — was shrouded in fabric last month, as a tribute to the late artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The Bulgarian-American architect, sculptor, installation artist, painter and draftsman is known as 'the packer'. Like most art finds its home in museums, Christo (1935-2020) saw the whole world as his ... Read more

DREAM BUILDER PROMENADE

You might be familiar with his strange apartment blocks in former Eastern Bloc architectural style, stray desolate villas, exorbitant but useless bridge constructions or block-boxes with a corner off. The Belgian architecture photographer and visual artist Filip Dujardin (1971) was called a digital tinkerer in his first overview book Fictions. In his digital photo collages he compiled images into a ... Read more

OH YEAH !

The fellow Swiss veterans of Yello are back! The genius electro duo, consisting of Boris Blank (1952) and Dieter Meier (1945), broke through in 1985 with the hit Oh Yeah, which ended up on various soundtracks. And that while the band already had hits like Bostich and I Love you to their name. I've been a fan from the very beginning and I played the life out both singles as a ... Read more

MAGICAL MURMURATIONS

The internationally renowned Danish photographer Søren Solkær (1969), previously known as Søren Solkær Starbird, is one of the world’s most commissioned photographers of leading musicians and rock bands. Solkær's photography is characterized by finding a tension point between intimacy and edginess. A high degree of staging and lighting are key characteristics of his ... Read more

POETRY THROUGH REPETITION

It is amazing the way Zimoun (1977), a Swiss self-taught sound artist, uses sound in order to create magic. He is most known for his sound sculptures, sound architectures and installation art that combine raw, industrial materials such as cardboard boxes, plastic bags, or old furniture, with mechanical elements such as dc-motors, wires, microphones, speakers and ventilators. By using simple ... Read more

HUNT FOR THE PERFECT PHOTO

Michel d'Oultremont (1992) exudes all the beauty of nature through his photos. He's a passionate and talented young Belgian nature photographer who already won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Rising Star Portfolio Award, in 2014. After he photographed animals mainly in close-up, he now takes much more distance. This way the animal can move freely through his image. ... Read more

THE MAGIC OF LONG EXPOSURE

French self-taught fine-art photographer Arnaud Bathiard (1973) specializes in black and white sea and waterscapes, incredibly calming still waters. Passionate about traveling, he has a predilection for austere landscapes he often treats in a minimalist vein. As a late bloomer he started capturing serene images in a serious way and quickly specialized in the technique ... Read more

REL'AXE'DNESS

She comes from the same region as Pippi Langstrømpe, namely Småland, but Julia Kalthoff (1988) does what almost no woman does: she makes axes. There have been some twenty axe forges in Sweden, most of these started around 1900. Today, there are few left. In 2009, at the age of 24, Julia Kalthoff became the chief executive officer of a 130-year-old Swedish axe ... Read more

NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS

Dutch visual artist Mark Manders (1968), once trained as a graphic designer, has been making a ‘self-portrait as a building’ ever since 1986. It's a declaration that seems uncharacteristic of the work for which he is best known: rough-hewn clay sculptures thick with symbolism and totemic meaning. His play with these two systems — rational constructions in a room and space-talking, ... Read more

LET'S DEMONSTRATE !

Pierre Bernard (1942-2015) left behind Grapus, one of the most thought-provoking pages in the history of graphic design in France. Grapus was a French communist collective of graphic designers who came together following the student protests in May 1968. Their ambition was to bring about political, social, and cultural change through bold graphic design that was in equal parts ... Read more

NEGATIVE SPACE

Known for his use of negative space and playful hidden messages, Israeli illustrator and graphic designer Noma Bar (1973) cleverly creates some thought-provoking illustrations, often with double meaning. The ability to tell a story through a few, well-considered marks is a skill that Bar has carefully mastered over the years. With a deft touch he can imbue simple graphic forms with ... Read more

SQUEEGEE !

Simon Marchner (1989) is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator based in Munich, Germany. He is specialized in music related designs such as tour posters, album artworks, merchandise etc. If musicians, bands or festival organizers are looking for something very special then Simon Marchner is the right address. He does not deliver announcement posters that hang on ... Read more

TO GRIT OR NOT TO GRID

Back in the late 1990s 'Ray Gun' was one of my favourite print publications, due largely to it’s random, scratchy, typography that blended the original Swiss Style with a more personal hand-crafted approach. The man responsible for this hybrid aesthetic, that became known as “Swiss Grit”, was Chris Ashworth. If you've ever seen a copy of 'Ray Gun', the experimental rock-and-... Read more

LIFE AT THE EDGES OF THE WORLD

Russian wildlife photographer Sergey Gorshkov (1966) has been fascinated by nature since he was a child growing up in a remote Siberian village surrounded by the arctic wilderness. It took 40 years until he became a full-time wildlife photographer and now he is the founding member of the Russian Union of wildlife photographers. Especially fond of traveling to remote areas previously ... Read more

INTO THE WILD

After 30 years filming wild and wonderful creatures in remote areas of the planet, Gordon Buchanan (1972) has a reputation for relishing dangerous and tough assignments. He has taken part in challenging expeditions and adventures around the globe, always with a view to raising awareness of the fragility of the world’s endangered species and habitats. He has travelled ... Read more

THE IMPOSSIBLE BAND

Iceland music has its specifics and rules. Being original, give space to other types of arts and put effort to differentiate from the rest of the scene. These traits fits to the description of one of the most interesting Iceland groups which has not suppressed its uniqueness although they were considered as strangers. Connoisseurs of the enchanting music in the style of electro house will be ... Read more

A NONVERBAL LANGUAGE

The high days of Belgian ‘contemporary’ dance are far from over. Old names are still going strong, new names are making fame, and ‘contemporary’ dance is breaking out of its borders. Belgian dance companies are a good argument for banishing the term ‘contemporary’. Isn't it a silly term? Unlike ‘modern’, which projected futures for a range of nowfailed ideologies and left ... Read more

I WRITE WHAT I CANNOT PAINT

In the oeuvre of Pierre Alechinsky (Brussels, 1927), unbridled imagination goes hand in hand with a spontaneous and direct way of working. His lyrical, evocative work reveals, among other things, the influence of Eastern calligraphy. He creates a very personal universe with (primal) signs and images that have a mythical charge. Over the years, a rich body of work has been ... Read more

SPATIAL PUZZLE-LIKE INSIGHTS

Swedish installation artist Michael Johansson (1975) re-contextualises the readymade, freeing mundane objects from their function to produce geometric sculptures and neatly constructed installations. His art pieces are recognisable yet unique, archaeologies of everyday life compressed into rectangles or cubes. Playfulness and a great sense of humour characterizes ... Read more

CYCLING NOSTALGIA

With a very extensive portfolio that appeals to everyone's imagination, Italian illustrator, painter and cartoonist, Riccardo Guasco (1975), tries to convey the introspective side of athletes with his designs using warm colours, Cubism like form play and a hint of humour. He is endowed with that peculiar form of sensitivity in which formal grace goes hand in hand with delicacy of ... Read more

NIGHT BIRDS IN LIGHT

David (1970) and Stéphanie Allemand (1974) released a majestic and sumptuous book called Owls, the very first in Europe. It is the result of ten years of photographic work and travelling through European countries to bring the nocturnes to light. In this mighty book, they share with us some of their secrets used to photograph these raptors but also some rather fascinating ... Read more

SIMPLIFIED TO PERFECTION

Malika Favre (1982) is a French Algerian artist who needs little introduction. Her work is incredibly popular, largely due to its instantly recognisable style that sees her create beautifully bold vector illustrations with her unique skill at the art of simplifying down an image to its bare essentials. When we set eyes on the creations of Malika Favre, it’s as if our entire ... Read more

A DEEP, GRITTY-SOUNDING VOICE

A singer recognized for his deep baritone, brooding delivery, and meditative, literate lyrics, Matt Berninger (1971) rose to fame during the 2000s as frontman of Brooklyn indie rockers The National, defined by their somber rock tunes, and his longtime artistic project, EL VY. Matt Berninger is a master of vocal monotony and skillful wordsmith, the man is an enigma who adds his aura ... Read more

PATTERNS IN JAZZ

Who knows the American design guru Reid Miles (1927-1993)? Miles is the guy who designed Blue Note in his own, distinctive style but not much has been written about him in the jazz press and if you ask most jazz fans very few will even know his name. Reid Miles is one of the unsung heroes of jazz history but there's absolutely no doubt that the cover art he produced for Blue ... Read more

AS CLOSE TO NATURE AS POSSIBLE

It's safe to say that Belgian photographer Frederik Buyckx (1984) has been quite successful since 2017. He was shortlisted in the ZEISS Photography Award with his series Horse Head, and was also announced as Professional Photographer of the Year at the Sony World Photography Awards. In his work Buyckx explores remote areas where nature can be overwhelmingly beautiful ... Read more

A PAINFUL BEAUTY

In his work, the Belgian painter Hervé Martijn (1961) presents a haunting image of the fragile, vulnerable human being, who, stripped of all cultural references, falls back on his naked existence. He makes whispering, noiseless paintings in which the human form is reduced to a shadowy appearance. His musing painting offer precious moments of deepening and reflection. ... Read more

MINIATURE CALENDER

A new generation Japanese artist, author and photographer, Tatsuya Tanaka (1981), has built almost uncountable worlds, turning everyday objects into miniature scenes, such as bed sheets as wavy waters, staples as hurdles, and broccoli as trees. He has a fantastic and fascinating way of looking at our lives and the every day objects in our homes around us. What began ... Read more

GATEWAY TO THE ARCTIC

Audun Rikardsen (1968) is a Norwegian biologist and wildlife photographer. He is professor at the Department of Arctic and Marine Biology at University of Tromsø. Among other things, Rikardsen has researched how satellite marking of wild salmon can map the fish's migrations. Being a scientist, Rikardsen uses photography as a helpful tool to show his scientific ... Read more

PUNCHY AND IMPUDENT ART

Eglė Žvirblytė is a Lithuanian multidisciplinary artist and illustrator based in London. She creates bright, feisty and irreverent work that melts your heart, kicks your butt and tickles your funny bone. "My body is my temple". That’s one of the mantras of Žvirblytė, who built her artistic career on important themes, such as identity and female power. Her vibrant, humorous illustrations ... Read more

THE ETERNAL AMAZEMENT

Born in 1976, Vincent Munier lives in the Vosges (France), his homeland, thus cultivating permanent contact with wild nature. He chooses photography to express his dreams, his emotions and his encounters. After his various successes in the prestigious BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in 2000, 2001 and 2002, he decided to devote himself entirely to ... Read more

BEYOND NO MAN’S LAND

Before 2012, Jan Erik Waider (1984) was a web designer who took photos for fun. Nowadays, this landscape photographer splits his time between Hamburg, Germany and exploring the raw, haunting stillness and ghostly tranquility of the Nordic countries. In each of these locations Waider seeks the most remote and hidden locations, wishing to present rarely seen perspectives of the ... Read more

ABSTRACT AERIAL LANDSCAPES

Graphic Designer Tom Hegen (1991, Germany) began to focus more and more on photography. Sitting at the window and seeing the earth from above on a long flight from Germany to New Zealand inspired his love for aerial photography. It takes a second to orient yourself to the bright colors, geometric shapes, and gritty textures of his Antropocene photography. Tom Hegen shows ... Read more

CALM WATERS

Mariá Švarbová (1988, Slovakia) originally studied conservation-restoration and archeology before dedicating herself to photography in 2010. Regarding her largest series, 'Swimming Pool', originating in 2014 and continuing to develop to date. The building is 80 years old and dates back to a time when swimming was more of a social duty than a sport, which is maybe why it’s ... Read more

VICTORIAN-ERA POOLSIDE

Soo Burnell is an Edinburgh based photographer. Her collection titled ‘Poolside’, which focuses on her passion for architecture. Soo captured the architecture of historic swimming pools by highlighting the striking geometry, dramatic proportions, the stillness of the water and dreamy colour palette of each space. Focussed on careful composition with the inclusion ... Read more

TYPOGRAPHIC ABSTRACTION

The Typographic Abstraction collages by Cecil Touchon (1956, Texas) are made by chopping of letters and using the elements to create new abstract forms as a kind of concrete poetry. It is through his work in collage that he has made a lasting mark on the world. He creates collages where he deconstructs found language, dismantling text from all kinds of sources including ... Read more

PUBLIC ART. WHY NOT?

Gordon Young is a British visual artist who focuses on creating art for the public domain, often including typographical elements. His work ranges from sculptures to typographic pavements. The common denominator for all projects is the basis of relevance to the surroundings. Gordon has a collaborative approach to working and has built up over the years strong and fruitful ... Read more

DIFFERENT KINDS OF READING

The Belgian artist Denmark — Marc Robbroeckx — (1951, Belgium) uses the printed products of the information age, including daily papers, leisure, job, beauty and lifestyle magazines, and the mountains of books we produce, as materials for his art. He has rendered this over-whelming flood of information and sensory stimulation into unintelligible matter since 1972. ... Read more

HIGHWAY CODE

Rosalie Gascoigne (1917-1999) — a highly regarded New Zealand-born Australian sculptor and assemblage artist — is best known for her distinctive and poetic assemblages of mostly found materials: wood, iron, wire, feathers, and yellow and orange retro-reflective road signs. Gascoigne brought these items from everyday life into new frames of reference, often finding beauty ... Read more

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Heikantstraat 31
3670 Ellikom-Oudsbergen, Belgium
+32 497534772
+32 491968643
whitewolf@woodlandstudio.be

Design is in everything we make, but it’s also between those things. It’s a mix of craft, science, storytelling, photography, propaganda, and philosophy.
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