me studio

yesterday i popped round to visit the retrospective show of book designer extraordinaire ‘irma boom’ in a department of amsterdam university and it was well worth it, now i am a big fan of her work anyway and i believe that she’s one of the very best worldwide in her field, so i was definitely already prejudiced about her work… the exhibition features her complete book oeuvre hanging (or rather floating) on the walls around the rooms, one slight disappointment is that the books cannot actually be openend, however the glass display cases spread around the place feature a broad collection of her sketch work, printers dummys, rejected projects and charming little post-it notes scribbled in her own handwriting (complete with poor spelling and bad grammar) explaining the various display pieces

many of the books are displayed as small thumbnail sketches next to the book which i found rather pointless and a bit odd, although it’s great to see her miniature full colour scale-dummies, boom apparently makes mini sketches of all of her books, sometimes trying a whole range of cover variations or combining different materials experimenting with different ways to alter the tactile experience of her designs

boom is one of a rare breed of designer, in my opinion, who has a rather singular and perhaps narrow vocabulary with which she works, the complete collection, shown together in this retrospective, reconfirms her integrity & talent as a graphic designer and gives a valuable insight into the mind of an individual obsessed with details and the overall ‘tactile’ experience of the books she creates, she leaves nothing to chance and the very last detail of a books form and physical appearance have clearly been tested and evaluated in many permutations before a finished product is decided upon… well worth a visit, the miniature (700+) page catalogue (on sale at the till) which at first seemed rather ‘gimmicky’ to me, makes much more sense once you’ve experienced the methods and ideas behind her work… the mini book has amusingly also been greatly enlarged as a one-off copy near the entrance, which works as a subtle introduction to the following work and the fashion in which irma boom plays around with the physical presence of her designs by constantly altering their volume / mass