dick bruna house

Enter the creative world of Dick Bruna

Since 2006, the complete works of Holland's most famous illustrator and graphic designer Dick Bruna are permanently shown in the dick bruna house in Utrecht, right across the street from the Centraal Museum. The collection mostly exists of characteristic drawings of the famous miffy and other main characters from the books. 

The little rabbit miffy, nijntje in Dutch, was created by Dick Bruna in 1955. Bruna created miffy - long before Hello Kitty was introduced into the world - when telling a story to his grandson. Bruna first decided that miffy would be a boy, but when Bruna started to draw the little rabbit and needed to draw clothes, he wanted to draw a dress, and not pants. From that moment on, miffy was a girl.

In the dick bruna house there are more than 1,200 works displayed. Besides works of miffy and her friends, Bruna also designed over two thousand book covers, and more than one hundred posters, postcards and other prints, which are exhibited in the dick bruna house together with works he made for Amnesty International and the Red Cross.

The ground floor of the dick bruna house is an excellent fun spot for children, as they truly enter the world of miffy, listen to the stories being told and play with miffy and her friends. Upstairs visitors can enjoy other works Bruna made during his career as a graphic designer.

Bruna believes in straightforwardness and simplicity. His pictograms of miffy represent Bruna’s simple and direct draughtsmanship. A picture should be able to tell a story, even without any words. With this minimalistic style, miffy managed to sell nearly 85 million copies worldwide.