Welcome
to the PhD defence of
Marije Hagendijk
Creating value in work-focused healthcare
Date: 22 September 2025
Time: 13.00h
The story in a nutshell
About the Cover
The cover design represents our journey towards value creation in work-focused healthcare. With the contents of this thesis, we have taken the first steps on this path — standing now on a hill, while the truly high peaks still lie ahead. The challenging mountain trails, dead ends, and detours symbolise that this journey is, and will continue to be, far from straightforward. The cover is hand-painted using handmade paints from natural and non-toxic pigments. These include paint made from earth pigments such as yellow ochre and green earth: quite literally the chemical building blocks of mountains. The mountains reflect my favourite landscape and a few in-jokes are woven into the artwork adding a personal touch.
a peek behind the scenes
Making Ink from acorns for a cover design
science meets art meets sustainability
About GreenThesis
Elma Hogeboom is a natural scientist-turned-artist with a passion for sustainability. As a designer I soon learned that many inks and paints used by artists are not so pretty in terms of their environmental performance. In fact, many art materials contain heavy metals and other toxic substances you’d rather not put on your hands or wall.
Leveraging my science background, I researched eco-friendly art alternatives. The result was a green art materials database out of which I could draw to create my works of art that are both beautiful and sustainable.
When some years ago I designed the sustainable cover for my husband’s PhD thesis, it needed to be digitized and printed many times. Clearly, it felt only natural to have the dissertation and cover sustainably printed. But yet again I was in for a not-so-green surprise: eco-friendly printing is not common practice.
Hence I dove into my books once more and decided to found GreenThesis.nl (DuurzameDissertatie.nl). With GreenThesis, I offer PhD candidates with a green heart the option to both design and print their thesis in an eco-friendly manner. From plastic-free packaging to printing on agricultural waste, and from vegan inks to bike delivery, I can help you find a sustainable solution.
From sustainable Design to printing your PhD Thesis
GreenThesis
Contact
- info <at> greenthesis <dot> nl
- Request a quotation
- Contact form
