From Form’s Amsterdam Museum Night campaign draws on surrealism and 17th century dioramas

In classical music, a nocturne is a dreamy and reflective piece capturing the spirit of the night. This concept was the starting point for From Form’s identity for the annual Amsterdam Museum Night (AMN). “There’s a certain mystique to the night that we wanted to embrace,” says Ashley Govers one half of the duo behind the Rotterdam studio. “We wanted to invite visitors to experience Amsterdam as one big maze, where the most beautiful encounters happen precisely when you have no plan.”

This year marks From Form’s fifth year designing the identity for AMN – an event that goes back 26 years. For the first three editions they built an identity around the flip-book, but since 2024 they’ve done a full reset every year. These focused on sensory experiences, first through travelling through time and place in 2024, and then the fun of collecting in 2025.

In the past, From Form wanted to balance the historic and contemporary to avoid making the event seem old-fashioned. But this year, they leaned into it. Drawing on surrealism and 17th-century dioramas, the team pieced together a mysterious world of floating keys, clocks and torches, animated to a soundscape of twinkling harps, owl sounds, and chiming bells. All of the animation is pieced together out of photographs, rather than live action shots, adding to the dreamlike, liminal mood of the night.

The distortion of time and space is a key visual device too. The duo were drawn to the distinct facial proportions of 17th century paintings, longer foreheads and necks or bigger eyes, and the forced perspective of miniature dioramas. “It’s something very subtle but alienating. We wanted to subtly bring that back into the campaign,” says Jurjen Versteeg, co-founder of From Form.

Over 65 museums are taking part in the event this Saturday 7 November. From the Rijksmuseum to science museums, botanical gardens and photography galleries, visitors can peruse paintings, photographs, and cabinets displaying precious objects, as well as taking part in workshops and performances. For some, the abundance of work on offer may come across as intimidating. And this is a notion that From Form’s identity deliberately challenges. “With today’s hyper-focus on efficiency, going somewhere without a goal or destination becomes rarer. Perhaps wandering is something we’ve forgotten how to do,” Jurjen says. With that in mind, Ashley urges us to “experience the city as a labyrinth: where familiar streets feel new, distances seem to shrink, and time momentarily loses its grip.”