Richard Niessen (Edam-Volendam, 1972) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 1996. Ever since he works on a body of work that he calls ‘Typographic Masonry’. It is the almost hermetic craft of forging amalgams of signs, symbols & ornaments in mostly nonlinear structures. This syncretic approach to graphic design, with a predilection for printwork, creates a coherent formal language exclusively to the project at hand.

Richard works for various clients including artists like Jennifer Tee and Ad de Jong, exhibition spaces as Cobra Museum and Tijdelijk Museum and organizations like the Stimuleringsfonds and Rijksgebouwendienst. In addition, the self-initiated projects (such as "JACK", "1:1:1", "Based on Bas Oudt") lead to experiments with presentation forms and collaborations with other designers and artists.

He created two traveling overview exhibitions of his work: "TM-City" (Chaumont Design Graphique, Chaumont, 2007) and "A Hermetic Compendium of Typographic Masonry"(Une Saison Graphique, Le Havre, 2014).

His most recent project is "The Palace of Typographic Masonry" which brings together experiment, research, connection with other disciplines and the embedding of graphic design in a broader cultural history.

Practicing as an artist and designer, Niessen has conducted workshops with students and designers around the world, and he has lectured and exhibited his work widely.