Karel Martensgraduated from the Arnhem School of Art in 1961. Since then he has worked as a freelance graphic designer, specialized in typography. Alongside this, he has always made free (non-commissioned) graphic and three-dimensional work. Among his clients have been the publishers Van Loghum Slaterus (Arnhem) in the 1960s, and SUN (Nijmegen) in the years 1975. As well as designing books and other printed items, he has designed stamps and telephone cards. He has also designed signs and typographic faades for a number of buildings. In 1993 Karel Martens was awarded the H.N. Werkman Prize for the design of the architectural magazine Oase . In 1996 he received the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art; as part of this prize, a monograph on his work was published: Karel Martens: Printed Matter . His work has been nominated several times at the Design Prize Rotterdam. In 1998 at the Leipzig Book Fair, Karel Martens: Printed Matter was awarded the gold medal, as the best-designed book in the whole world. Over the years his books have featured regularly in the annual Best-Designed Dutch Books competition. Karel Martens has taught graphic design since 1977. He started teaching at the Arnhem School of Art, followed by a teaching position at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. From 1997 onward he has been a critic in the graphic design department at Yale University, New Haven, USA. In 1998 he and Wigger Bierma founded the WT.