Irma Boom

record · Eye 13 (Farrelly, 1994)

1. What it is — exhibition catalogue of the best-designed Dutch books, Stichting CPNB, 1989; offset, Mart. Spruijt; 20.5 × 17 × 11.5 cm — the 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: a dark grey-blue suede surface, the word BOEK in a single line at 58% of the height, letters spaced wide across the full width (x 12–88%); above it, at 40%, the word BEST — mirrored and without colour, only a trace in the suede. The title is split into a visible and a "wrong" half; the eye lands on the blue, then looks for what's above. The block is cuboid, almost as deep as it is wide — an object, not a volume.
3. Colour — two: a dark base and one light blue for one word. Everything else is the tone of the material. Blue isn't colour but rank — the only coloured word is the only one legible from five metres.
4. Typography — a capitals grotesque with extreme letterspacing (typeface not confirmed); BEST in the same cut, mirrored. The letter functions as edge ornament: the spacing is wider than the letters, so the word becomes a measuring strip the width of the format.
5. Message — "the best book" showing itself as object: three seconds give BOEK, five metres give a blue line on a 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 theme through the object, not through a picture of the object. The constraint was the budget (paper coated on one side, offset) — 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: Word cut by the format's edge (BEST as a mirrored trace — the word deliberately damaged by convention) Block thickness is the message To verify against the image: the interior (alternately trimmed pages, double narrative) — only Eye 13; not verified against the image.

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, hand-bound in Japanese style, with a gold 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 is analysed; Eye's description goes under "Other".
2. Composition — cover: a white surface, three lines of Roman numerals MCM / LXXX / VIII in a grey roman typeface, 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 moves 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, a "legal document" (Eye: an annual report isn't read, it is a legal document and PR).
4. Typography — a capitals roman typeface with wide spacing (class Trajan/Times; typeface not confirmed). A classical typeface for an institution — but used as an image: a Roman numeral instead of an Arabic one is the cover's only "idea" and it's enough.
5. Message — a state institution, one year, nothing else; from five metres three lines of grey letters, in three seconds "1988" only once translated. Deliberately slow 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 a grotesque top left and the Council's logo: it would become a report like a thousand others.

Principles: Program instead of artefact (Eye 13, another RvdK report: text size mathematically derived from text length, "no layouts required" — documented, but for a different copy; the tag applies to the series of reports, not to this cover) The fore-edge is the page (Eye 13: gold brushed edge, French-folded — 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 — a book for the centenary of the SHV Holdings concern, Utrecht; 2,136 pages, two volumes (white and black), each 22.5 × 17 × 11 cm, c. 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, contents or index; chronology BACKWARDS from 1996 to 1896; the edge of the block printed — flicking left to right reveals a field of tulips, right to left the verses of a Dutch poem (MoMA); holes printed without ink as an "unknown future", increasingly fewer the further back in the past one goes (Typotheque). The original idea was 4,000 pp. (Typotheque).
2. Composition — an open spread (MoMA photograph of the white volume) — the left page almost empty, the right carries a huge figure "1" (height ~40% of the page) and a sepia photograph without a frame; from the block hang three red ribbons (the only orientation in the book without page numbers). Closed black volume: a cube 22 × 17 × 11, the spine as wide as half the cover; the block edge light with a warm tone — this is the printed edge from the MoMA description. Constant across the two-volume series: the same block, opposite cover colour.
3. Colour — two volumes = two non-colours (white/black); inside sepia and a photographic tone, one red as the ribbon. Colour only appears AT THE EDGE (tulips) — the strongest colour of the book is at the one place where books usually have none.
4. Typography — a figure as image, "1" dominates the page; typefaces not confirmed — Boom otherwise keeps to 2–3 typefaces per project (Typotheque). For this book the specific typeface is not claimed.
5. Message — the history of a company 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 between hand and block — and in the fact that NOBODY commissioned it to be useful: the boss only asked for "something unusual" (confirmed by MoMA).
6. Why exactly this way — the constraint was not budget (there wasn't one) 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 (number, 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 thick corporate monograph.

Principles: Without navigation, reading is wandering (benchmark) The fore-edge is the page (tulips / poem) Block thickness is the message (3.5 kg) Subtraction as authorship (the convention of pagination abolished — a gesture against the convention, not against the image) The process is the message (holes without ink = future; smell and images visible on wet paper not confirmed) To verify against the image: the smell and "images on wet paper" are not confirmed in any source; the "shocking pink" binding (Wallpaper) against 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; the year is not finally confirmed, here MoMA is taken.
2. Composition — cover: the entire front is a grid of tiny reproductions, c. 20 columns × 30 rows, each the size of a postage stamp, no margin to the edge; the title and author's name stand upright, small, along the right edge (x 93–97%). Among the small images there is no hierarchy — hierarchy is only quantity. The eye never stops anywhere, it slides over the surface. The block is heavy, an almost square spine.
3. Colour — all of Treumann's colours stand at once, each small; the overall tone is colourfully grey. The palette does not choose a colour, it refuses choice: it is a sample of the entire body of work.
4. Typography — small grotesque (sans serif), upright; typeface not confirmed. The letter hugs 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" — five metres of textures and three seconds of individual works, squeezed into a fist. Typotheque notes that the works inside are shown "near-actual size", while outside they are reduced to stamp size — two opposite scales in the same book.
6. Why exactly this way — a conflict between author and subject: Treumann wanted an archive, the designer "stayed myself"; his response was "Irma it's your book" (Typotheque). The cover is her answer: all of him, but by her rule — a grid, without rank.
7. What would kill it — one Treumann poster, enlarged on the cover: a monograph the way he wanted it, and not a single decision by the designer.

Principles: The cover is the catalogue (benchmark) To verify against the image: the interior (reproductions at actual size — a claim only from Typotheque).

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 (and endpaper), 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 maquettes, in collaboration with the artist (Eye 88). Boom considers it his best work (Eye 88).
2. Composition — (MoMA, closed book): a white block almost 6 cm high, smaller than A5; the cover white with an embossed fabric pattern across the whole surface (tone on tone, visible only under light); the name SHEILA HICKS small, on one line, at ~72% of the height, centred — less than 1% of the surface. Front edge: rough, irregular, like cut cloth — the only "event" on the object is that edge. Inside (DBVB jury): "clear and sober", large white space around the works.
3. Colour — white on white outside; colour comes from the reproductions of 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 roman, quiet; "unusual letter size" on the cover (jury) — small where everyone else would go large. The typeface serves the text, the cover serves the edge.
5. Message — a book about weaving that behaves like fabric: the edge unravels, the cover is embossed cloth. From five metres a white brick; from three seconds — nothing; in the hand — everything. The work deliberately refuses to be read from a distance: the monograph is for the hand.
6. Why exactly this way — the subject (weaving = edge, thread, touch) dictates the method (saw, embossing, matte paper); the constraint is industrial production in a print run — the solution lies in mechanical damage to the block, not in handwork. "Social housing", not a villa.
7. What would kill it — a straight-trimmed edge. It would remain a nice white monograph; the metaphor from the title would exist only in the title.

Principles: The fore-edge is the page (the edge carries the metaphor) The process is the message (saw = weaving; second author after Stefan Sagmeister) Block thickness is the message To verify against the image: the spreads (whitespace, layout of photographs) — jury only; not seen.

zapis DBVB · MoMA

1. What it is — 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 cutout; Lecturis, Eindhoven; typefaces Neuzeit Grotesk and Linotype Plantin; binding Patist / Geertsen (DBVB). Predecessor is the mini Biography in Books from 2010 (704 pp.), issued alongside a retrospective in Amsterdam; MoMA 784.2014 lists the large red copy along with the mini red and mini blue under the year 2010. The author's plan: with each new edition the mini grows 3%, the XXL shrinks 3% per year (Designers & Books).
2. Composition — (MoMA photograph: large box with mini book on top of it): red plane; the word BOOM white, constructed from straight bands (letters as stencil), width ~55% of the box, placed in the upper third; the same word, same proportions, on the mini book — the only difference is scale. Thumb cutout bottom left is the only hole in the plane. The XXL block is almost 6 cm thick, the mini is almost a cube (43 × 55 × 28).
3. Colour — one vermillion and white; the other mini copy is blue (MoMA .2b) — colour functions as the edition, not as decoration. Inside it is black-and-white and colour according to the reproduction.
4. Typography — Neuzeit Grotesk and Plantin (DBVB): geometric grotesque (sans serif) for labels, serif for text — the same pairing in both sizes, so in the mini the setting drops below 4 pt. The word BOOM on the cover isn't from a font but constructed; typeface/cut 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, one for the table; the author's name functions as a sign. Three-second test: red box; five metres: red box and a dot on it.
6. Why exactly this way — the mini is a working tool (maquettes for checking structure, Designers & Books) released as a product; the XXL is the same file pushed to the other extreme. Constraint: nothing in the content changes — all the design is in the FORMAT.
7. What would kill it — a "normal" edition 17 × 24 cm between them. The moment a middle measure exists, the extremes become versions, not a thesis.

Principles: Format is the first decision (second author after April Greiman — content fixed, what changes is what the object IS) Block thickness is the message (28 mm at 43 × 55) To verify against the image: spreads; drop in legibility in the mini.

zapis Boijmans · DDA

1. What it is — book accompanying 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“), printed on an old letterpress machine without colour (book-as-exhibition); drawings and quotes about Gabrielle Chanel drawn by hand for each page; the white block sits in a black box. Page count not established: 300 (book-as-exhibition, Wallpaper) / 500 (DDA) / „600“ (title from Philadelphia Magazine). Thickness 5 cm = the number 5 (book-as-exhibition). Dutch Design Award 2014; Design Museum London „Designs of the Year". MoMA 792.2014 is the SECOND Chanel book (Livre d'Artistes, 2014, 26.4 × 22 × 4.8, also embossed) — not to be confused with this one.
2. Composition — (DDA photograph, open book, at an angle): white spread, on the right page an embossed outline of the N° 5 bottle with label, centred, height ~45% of the page; left page empty (or the relief invisible under that light); the block is thick, pages white to the edge; a black box stands behind it. Everything visible depends on the angle of light: the composition is conditional, the viewer must light it.
3. Colour — none. White on white; the black box is the only contrast and stands outside the book. Colour has been shifted into the shadow of the relief — that is, into the light of the room.
4. Typography — quotes in relief, hand-drawn per page (book-as-exhibition); typeface cannot be established. Letters without ink are read by 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 is captured and made tangible through other senses. Three seconds: white book; five metres: a white cube in a black box; in hand — text you touch. Boom: „something almost nonexistent yet very present" (Designers & Books).
6. Why exactly this way — the subject is invisible (perfume), so the one means of visibility in the book is removed — ink. The constraint is technical: the relief 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 relief because of a different technique (Designers & Books) — the process chooses the format.
7. What would kill it — one black word. Any ink mark, and a title on the cover, pull the book back into being an exhibition catalogue.

Principles: The process is the message (no ink = scent; second author after Stefan Sagmeister, across two works — 05 and 07) Subtraction as authorship (ink eliminated — convention, not image) Block thickness is the message (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 — photographic book by Wijnande Deroo about the renovated Rijksmuseum, to accompany 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, Butterfly endpaper black 170 g, cover Wibalin Natural 570 Black on 1 mm grey board; offset Lecturis; sewn, front edge untrimmed, "trimmed" by gathering; typeface Rijksmuseum (Boom with Bold Monday / Paul van der Laan); print run 4,000 (DBVB). Photographs are ordered by colour, volume and light, not by room (DBVB).
2. Composition — cover: black cloth plane; the word RIJKS MU in grey, large (letter height ~12% of the cover), in one 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 upper 75% is empty. The eye enters bottom left, exits the book to the right — the direction of reading follows the direction of opening. The join RIJKS MU quotes the 2012 logo (spacing between "Rijks" and "museum", rijksmuseum.nl).
3. Colour — black + grey letters; colour is inside (Deroo ordered by colour). The cover carries the institution's tone, without "festive self-promotion" (DBVB) — zero colour on opening day.
4. Typography — typeface Rijksmuseum: a wide grotesque (sans serif) with an IJ ligature. The typeface is part of the identity, so the cover needs neither logo nor image: the letter is the sign. Cutting the word off at the edge is a typographic move, not a mistake.
5. Message — "this is the Rijksmuseum, the rest of the name is inside"; at five metres a black book with a grey band of letters at the bottom; at three seconds, RIJKS. Restrained to the edge of cold — DBVB: "restrained individuality".
6. Why exactly this way — constraint: the client is its own identity institution, so the only decoration allowed is the identity itself (typeface, spacing). The untrimmed edge by gathering gives the block a rhythm that matches the sequence of images by light — the edge is again content.
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 sign.

Principles: Word cut by the format's edge (benchmark) The fore-edge is the page (untrimmed edge by gathering) Subtraction as authorship (no logo, no image, no full word) To verify against the image: spine and back cover (continuation SEUM?); spreads. Not verified against the image.