Willem Hendrik Crouwel was born in 1928 in Groningen, Netherlands. He studied fine art at Academie Minerva, then took evening classes in typography in Amsterdam at what is now the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. After designing exhibitions for Enderberg in the early 1950s, he set up a studio with the industrial designer Kho Liang Ie.
Influenced by Swiss typography, Crouwel became fascinated by letterforms and grids. An early client was the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, where he designed catalogues and posters for its director, Edy de Wilde. In 1963 Crouwel co-founded Total Design, creating identities for major Dutch companies and institutions. When de Wilde moved to the Stedelijk Museum that same year, he brought Crouwel with him, and they worked together until 1985.
He also designed stamps for the Dutch PTT, and in 1985 became director of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
