The Unemployed Chefs

Designstudio

Twelve chefs full of creativity. A ‘mise en place’ of knowledge and talents, all with their own company, and together they are The Unemployed Chefs, a total design studio led by creative director Edo Draaijer. His studio in the Raambuurt in Deventer is their creative soup kitchen. Twelve chefs who also want to welcome new talent into their kitchen. Chefs wo, from their own specialties, work together and complement each other, so the customer is treated with haute cuisine.

Starter
Edo has been working with creative self-employed persons for years and makes illustrations, animations and cartoons for several clients. For example, he has made an animation series of 37 parts for Dutch TV channel AvroTros, together with animator Bas Tular and writer Luuk Talens. This was just the beginning of their collaboration.

Amuse
Edo was asked to join the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) fair in Amsterdam by Japanese electronics concern NEC.com. At this large technology fair, Draaijer demonstrated how he could paint on a digital screen with ordinary brushes. This resulted in an invitation for numerous other fairs of Canadian touch screen company Baanto. That is how he ended up in Las Vegas and Dubai, for example.

A menu to many companies’ hearts, with clients such as Heineken, Qmusic, Unilever and Friesland Campina, the Province of Overijssel, newspapers and TV shows.

From extra course to main course
The soup kitchen produces extra and main courses with love, so they can give the customer everything they want. In Dubai Mall, there is an enormous aquarium with a large screen of 50 x 14 metres, made of 820 screens, on top of it. The animations that are shown are made by The Unemployed Chefs. Edo: “I am involved in this as creative director and have designed the animations. Michael de Louwere has animated all the fish. The 3D animations are by Johan van ‘t Hul, and Hans Bakker has mixed the soundtracks. The project started in 2017, and we are still working on it.”

Total Design
“I want to show that customers can come to us for all things creative. From films to 2D and 3D animations, from text and total concepts to photography,” Edo says. Two photographers, Rick de Visser and Sushilla Kouwen, capture beautiful dishes. New customers and jobs are coming in. Are you hungry? Have a look at the menu at: www.theunemployedchefs.com.