Irma Boom

record · Eye 13 (Farrelly, 1994)

1. What it is — catalogue of the exhibition of the best-designed Dutch books, Stichting CPNB, 1989; offset, Mart. Spruijt; 20.5 × 17 × 11.5 cm — so a block 11.5 cm thick at a format smaller than A5; suede cover; per Eye an A3 folded flat to A4, „a book within a book“ with two narratives, paper coated on one side only, pages trimmed alternately (MoMA; Eye 13).
2. Composition — cover (v2): dark grey-blue suede surface, the word BOEK in one line at 58% of the height, letters spaced wide across the whole width (x 12–88%); above it, at 40%, the word BEST — but MIRRORED and without colour, only as a trace in the suede. The title is split into a visible and a „wrong“ half; the eye enters on the blue, then looks for what's above. Block: cube-like, almost as wide as it is deep — an object, not a notebook.
3. Colour — two: a dark base and one light blue for one word. Everything else is the tone of the material. Blue is not a colour but a rank — the only coloured word is the only one that reads from five metres.
4. Typography — a capitals grotesque with extreme letterspacing (typeface not confirmed); BEST in the same cut, mirrored. The letter here works as an edge ornament: the space is larger than the letter, so the word becomes a measuring tape the width of the format.
5. Message — „best book“, which shows itself as an object: three seconds gives BOEK, five metres gives a blue line on the dark block; BEST is only read in the hand. Eye: sophisticated, not expensive („It's sophisticated, it's not expensive“).
6. Why exactly this way — the content is an exhibition of books: the solution must prove the subject through the object, not through an image of the object. The constraint was budget (paper coated on one side only, offset) — so the richness goes into trimming and binding, not into colour.
7. What would kill it — BEST printed normally, above BOEK, in the same blue: the cover would become the title page of a catalogue, and the block would remain the only argument.

Principles: rijec-sjecena-rubom-formata (BEST as a mirrored trace — a word deliberately damaged by convention) debljina-bloka-je-poruka To verify against the image: the interior (alternately trimmed pages, double narrative) — only Eye 13; not seen.

zapis

1. What it is — annual report of the Dutch Council for the Arts for 1988, published 1989; offset, Drukkerij Rosbeek; 29.7 × 25 × 0.3 cm (MoMA 894.2007). Caution: Eye 13 describes a Raad voor de Kunst report on bible paper, Japanese-bound by hand, with a gilt edge and fold-out pages of 700+ characters per line — at a thickness of 0.3 cm this is almost certainly NOT this copy but the 1989 report (the MoMA roster also has „Raad voor de Kunst 1988–1989“). Only the cover seen in the session is analysed here; Eye's description goes into „Other“.
2. Composition — cover (v2): white surface, three lines of Roman numerals MCM / LXXX / VIII in grey serif, aligned as a block at 25–70% of the height, almost the full width of the format; the bottom third empty. The year 1988 is BROKEN into three lines by the Roman system (thousands–hundreds / tens / units), so it reads as three words, not as a number. The eye goes top to bottom as if reading an inscription on a monument.
3. Colour — one grey on white. No blue or gold on the cover; the tone is official, „legal document“ (Eye: the annual report is not read, it is a legal document and PR).
4. Typography — a capitals roman serif with wide spacing (Trajan/Times class; typeface not confirmed). A classic typeface for an institution — but used as an image: the Roman numeral instead of an Arabic one is the only „idea“ of the cover, and it is enough.
5. Message — a state institution, one year, nothing else; from five metres three lines of grey letters, from three seconds „1988“ only once you translate it. Deliberately slowed reading on the title page.
6. Why exactly this way — the report's text is legally mandatory, no one reads it; so Boom shifts the value from reading to leafing through and holding (Eye 13). The cover announces this: a number that demands translation.
7. What would kill it — „Jaarverslag 1988“ in grotesque top left and the Council's logo: it would become a report like a thousand others.

Principles: program-umjesto-artefakta (Eye 13, second RvdK report: text size calculated mathematically from text length, „no layouts required” — DOCUMENTED, but for a different copy; the tag applies to the series of reports, not to this cover) rub-bloka-je-stranica (Eye 13: gold- brushed edge, French fold — same caution) To verify against the image: which exact copy is from Eye; the interior of this one (0.3 cm).

zapis

1. What it is — book for the SHV Holdings concern's centenary, Utrecht; 2,136 pages, two volumes (white and black), each 22.5 × 17 × 11 cm, ca. 3.5 kg; offset, Drukkerij Rosbeek; 4,000 English + 500 Chinese copies (Typotheque); five years of work 1991–96, of which 3.5 in archives; no page numbers, table of contents or index; chronology BACKWARDS from 1996 to 1896; block edge printed — flipping left to right reveals a field of tulips, right to left verses of a Dutch poem (MoMA); holes printed without ink as „unknown future,” progressively fewer the further back in time (Typotheque). Original idea 4,000 pp. (Typotheque).
2. Composition — v2 (MoMA photograph: white volume open, black closed): open spread — left page nearly empty, right page carries a huge number „1” (height ~40% of the page) and a sepia photograph without a frame; three red ribbons hang from the block (the only orientation device in the book, which has no numbers). Closed black volume: a cube 22 × 17 × 11, spine as wide as half the cover; block edge light with a warm tone — that is the printed edge from the MoMA description. Constant across the series of two volumes: same block, opposite cover colour.
3. Colour — two volumes = two non-colours (white/black); inside sepia and photographic tone, one red as ribbon. Colour appears only ON THE EDGE (tulips) — the strongest colour in the book is at the place where a book usually has none.
4. Typography — number as image (v2: „1” dominates the page); typefaces not confirmed — Boom otherwise holds to 2–3 typefaces per project (Typotheque). For this book no specific typeface is claimed.
5. Message — a company history that cannot be searched, only wandered through: „a journey not from A to B but from K to D” (Typotheque). Three-second test: a brick; five-metre test: two blocks, white and black. The message is not in the text but in the relation of hand to block — and in the fact that NO ONE commissioned it to be useful (v1, confirmed by MoMA: the boss only asked for „something unusual”).
6. Why exactly this way — the constraint was not budget (there was none) but the client's philosophy: „It's more important to discover things for yourself rather than giving instructions” (Typotheque) — so the book abolishes every instrument of instruction (numbering, contents, index). The deadline (May 1996) is the only hard limit.
7. What would kill it — page numbers. One small number in the corner brings back „retrieval” and the whole object becomes a fat corporate monograph.

Principles: bez-navigacije-citanje-je-lutanje (benchmark) rub-bloka-je-stranica (tulips / poem) debljina-bloka-je-poruka (3.5 kg) oduzimanje-kao-autorstvo (the convention of pagination abolished — the verb acts on the convention, not on the image) postupak-je-poruka (holes without ink = future; „printed with a scent” and images visible when the paper is wet — v1 only, unconfirmed) To verify against the image: the scent and „images on wet paper” (v1) are not confirmed by any source in this session; the pink „shocking pink” binding (Wallpaper) versus the white/black volume in MoMA — probably different copies/editions.

zapis

1. What it is — a monograph on designer Otto Treumann, Uitgeverij 010, Rotterdam; offset, Veenman Printers; 24 × 19 × 9.5 cm (MoMA 902.2007) — a block almost 10 cm deep. Typotheque (2001) dates the book to 2001; MoMA to 1999 — MoMA taken as the source, see Notes on sources.
2. Composition — cover (v2): the entire front is a GRID of tiny reproductions, ca. 20 columns × 30 rows, each the size of a postage stamp, no margin to the edge; the title and author's name run vertically, small, along the right edge (x 93–97%). There is no hierarchy among the small images — the only hierarchy is quantity. The eye finds nowhere to enter: it slides. The block: heavy, an almost cube-shaped spine.
3. Colour — all of Treumann's colours at once, each small; the overall tone is a coloured grey. Boom does not choose a colour — she chooses not to choose: the palette is a sample of the body of work.
4. Typography — small grotesque set upright (typeface not confirmed). The letter sits right at the edge; the cover is an image, not a title page.
5. Message — „this is the whole man, everything he made, in a single glance”; from five metres texture, from three seconds a carpet, in the hand — individual works. Typotheque: Boom shows the works „near-actual size” inside, but shrinks them to stamp size outside — two extremes of scale.
6. Why exactly this way — a conflict between author and subject: Treumann wanted an archive, she „stayed myself”; his reply, „Irma it's your book” (Typotheque). The cover is her answer: everything his, but under her rule (grid, no rank).
7. What would kill it — one large Treumann poster on the cover: the monograph he wanted, and not a single decision by the designer.

Principles: korice-su-katalog (benchmark) To verify against the image: the interior (reproductions at actual size — Typotheque only).

zapis DBVB · MoMA

1. What it is — a monograph on textile artist Sheila Hicks, Yale University Press for the Bard Graduate Center; 155 × 220 × 59 mm, 416 pp., Munken Print White 150 g (also the flyleaf), binding Butterfly off-white 150 g; offset and letterpress (MoMA); sewn hardcover, the block edge roughened with a circular saw to evoke the unravelled edges of Hicks's weavings (DBVB; Eye 88: „hacked with a circular saw”); Rosbeek, binding by Van Waarden; typeface Plantin; gold medal „Best Book Design from all over the World,” Leipzig 2007. Four years of work, 50 dummies, in collaboration with the artist (Eye 88). Boom considers it her best work (Eye 88).
2. Composition — v2 (MoMA, closed book): a white block almost 6 cm tall, a format smaller than A5; cover white with a fabric pattern embossed across the whole surface (tone on tone, visible only under raking light); the name SHEILA HICKS small, in a single line, at ~72% height, centred — less than 1% of the surface. Front edge: rough, irregular, like cut cloth — the only „event” on the object is at the edge. Inside (DBVB jury): „clear and sober,” large areas of white around the works.
3. Colour — white on white outside; the colour is in the reproductions of the weavings inside. The 150 g paper is a colour decision: the weight and matte tone carry the textile better than gloss would (jury).
4. Typography — Plantin (DBVB) — a Renaissance serif, quiet; „unusual letter size” on the cover (jury) — small where anyone else would go large. The typeface serves the text, the cover serves the edge.
5. Message — a book about weaving that BEHAVES like a fabric: the edge frays, the cover is embossed cloth. From five metres a white brick; from three seconds — nothing; in the hand — everything. A work that refuses to be read from a distance is deliberate: the monograph is for the hand.
6. Why exactly this way — the subject (weaving = edge, thread, touch) dictates the process (saw, embossing, matte paper); the constraint is industrial production at scale — she found the solution in MECHANICAL damage to the block, not in handwork. „Social housing,” not a villa.
7. What would kill it — a straight-cut edge. It would remain a nice white monograph; the metaphor from the title would stay only in the title.

Principles: rub-bloka-je-stranica (the edge carries the metaphor) postupak-je-poruka (saw = weaving; second author after Stefan Sagmeister) debljina-bloka-je-poruka To verify against the image: the spreads (whitespace, layout of photographs) — jury only; not seen.

zapis DBVB · MoMA

1. What it is — the author's own monograph in TWO formats with identical content of 800 pp.: mini 43 × 55 × 28 mm (5,500 pcs, Elementa Opaque 60 g, Skivertex cover) and XXL 345 × 450 × 58 mm (150 pcs, Munken Polar 120 g, Malmero Vermillion 300 g laminated cover), in a grey cardboard box with a thumb-hole; Lecturis, Eindhoven; typefaces Neuzeit Grotesk and Linotype Plantin; binding Patist / Geertsen (DBVB). Predecessor: mini Biography in Books 2010 (704 pp.) alongside a retrospective in Amsterdam; MoMA 784.2014 holds the large red + mini red + mini blue under the year 2010 (see Notes on sources). Author's plan: with each new edition the mini grows 3%, the XXL shrinks 3% per year (Designers & Books).
2. Composition — v2 (MoMA photograph: large box with the mini book on top of it): red surface; the lettering BOOM in white, constructed from straight bands (letters as a stencil), width ~55% of the box, placed in the upper third; the same lettering, the same proportions, on the mini book — the only difference is scale. Thumb-hole bottom left as the only opening in the surface. The XXL block almost 6 cm thick, the mini almost a cube (43 × 55 × 28).
3. Colour — one vermilion + white; the second mini is blue (MoMA .2b) — colour as edition, not as decoration. Inside, black-and-white and colour per reproduction.
4. Typography — Neuzeit Grotesk + Plantin (DBVB): geometric grotesque for labels, serif for text — the same pairing in both sizes, so in the mini the setting drops below 4 pt. The lettering BOOM on the cover is not from a font but constructed (specific typeface not confirmed).
5. Message — jury: „tiny clarifies the relationship between book and postage stamp, the megalarge that between book and poster“. Same content, two objects: one for the pocket, the other for the table; the author's name as a mark. Three-second test: a red box; five metres: a red box with a dot on it.
6. Why exactly this way — the mini is her working tool (mock-ups for checking structure, Designers & Books) issued as a product; the XXL is the same file pushed to the other extreme. Constraint: nothing changes in the content — all the design is in the FORMAT.
7. What would kill it — a "normal" edition 17 × 24 cm between them. As soon as a middle size exists, the extremes become versions, not a thesis.

Principles: format-je-prva-odluka (second author after April Greiman — content fixed, what changes is what the object IS) debljina-bloka-je-poruka (28 mm at 43 × 55) To verify against the image: spreads; drop in legibility in the mini.

zapis Boijmans · DDA

1. What it is — a book for the exhibition N° 5 Culture Chanel at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013, client Chanel; 27 × 22 × 5 cm (Boijmans V 2887 a-b, gift of Chanel 2014); entirely blind-embossed, without ink (DDA: „geheel in blindpreeg gedrukt“), on an old letterpress machine without colour (book-as-exhibition); drawings and quotes about Gabrielle Chanel, hand-drawn for each page; a white block in a black box. Page count disputed: 300 (book-as-exhibition, Wallpaper) / 500 (DDA) / „600“ (title of Philadelphia Magazine) — not to be asserted. Thickness 5 cm = the number 5 (book-as-exhibition). Dutch Design Award 2014; Design Museum London „Designs of the Year“. MoMA 792.2014 is a DIFFERENT Chanel book (Livre d'Artistes, 2014, 26.4 × 22 × 4.8, also embossed) — not to be confused with this one.
2. Composition — v2 (DDA photograph, open book, at an angle): white spread, on the right-hand page an embossed outline of the N° 5 bottle with its label, centred, height ~45% of the page; the left page empty (or the emboss invisible under that light); a thick block, pages white to the edge; behind it — a black box. Everything visible depends on the angle of light: the composition is conditional, the viewer must light it themselves.
3. Colour — none. White on white; the black box is the only contrast and it stands OUTSIDE the book. Colour has been relocated into the shadow of the emboss — that is, into the light of the room.
4. Typography — quotes in emboss, hand-drawn per page (book-as-exhibition); the typeface cannot be asserted. Letters without ink: read with a finger and under raking light, like an inscription on stone.
5. Message — scent: „intense and exciting, yet invisible“ (Boom on Grasse); DDA jury: the sense of smell captured and made tangible through the other senses. Three seconds: a white book; five metres: a white cube in a black box; in the hand — text you feel. Boom: „something almost nonexistent yet very present“ (Designers & Books).
6. Why exactly this way — the subject is invisible (perfume), so the only means of visibility in a book is eliminated — ink. The constraint is technical: the emboss must be deep to carry the text, so the paper must be thick, so the book becomes a 5 cm block; the mini catalogue copy has a shallower emboss due to a different technique (Designers & Books) — the process chooses the format.
7. What would kill it — a single black word. Any ink imprint, and a title on the cover, sends the book back to being an exhibition catalogue.

Principles: postupak-je-poruka (no ink = scent; second author after Stefan Sagmeister, across two works — 05 and 07) oduzimanje-kao-autorstvo (ink eliminated — convention, not image) debljina-bloka-je-poruka (5 cm = N° 5) To verify against the image: page count; whether the left page of the spread is also embossed; cover.

zapis DBVB · slika

1. What it is — a photographic book by Wijnanda Deroo about the renovated Rijksmuseum, to mark the 2013 reopening; Rijksmuseum + nai010, Rotterdam; concept Irma Boom, execution with Sanne van de Goor; 233 × 290 × 23 mm, 226 pp., Munken Polar 150 g, black Butterfly endpaper 170 g, cover Wibalin Natural 570 Black on 1 mm grey board; offset Lecturis; sewn, front edge uncut, "trimmed" by signature; typeface Rijksmuseum (Boom with Bold Monday / Paul van der Laan); print run 4,000 (DBVB). Photographs arranged by colour, volume and light, not by room (DBVB).
2. Composition — cover (v2): a black cloth surface; the lettering RIJKS MU in grey, large (letter height ~12% of the cover), in a single line at 80–92% of the height, starting at ~5% from the left edge and RUNNING OFF the format to the right — the word "museum" is cut off after MU. The top 75% empty. The eye enters bottom left, exits the book to the right — the direction of reading is the direction of opening. The join RIJKS MU quotes the 2012 logotype (the space between "Rijks" and "museum", rijksmuseum.nl).
3. Colour — black + grey letters; colour is inside (Deroo arranged by colour). Cover: the institution's tone, without "ceremonial self-promotion" (DBVB) — zero colour on opening day.
4. Typography — the Rijksmuseum typeface: a wide grotesque with an IJ ligature (visible in v2: IJ as a single character). The typeface is part of the identity, so the cover needs neither logotype nor image: the letter IS the mark. The cutting of the word by the edge is a typographic move, not a mistake.
5. Message — „this is the Rijksmuseum, the rest of the name is inside“; from five metres a black book with a grey band of letters at the bottom; from three seconds, RIJKS. Restrained to the edge of cold — DBVB: „restrained individuality“.
6. Why exactly this way — the constraint: the client is the institution's own identity, so the only decoration allowed is the identity itself (typeface, spacing). The uncut edge by signature gives the block a rhythm that matches the sequence of images by light — the edge as content, again.
7. What would kill it — the whole word RIJKSMUSEUM squeezed into the format, or a photograph of the building on the cover. The typeface would stop being a mark.

Principles: rijec-sjecena-rubom-formata (benchmark) rub-bloka-je-stranica (uncut edge by signature) oduzimanje-kao-autorstvo (no logotype, no image, no full word) To verify against the image: spine and back cover (continuation SEUM?); spreads.