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"Irma Boom" Tag


everything is design, design is for everybody!


Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Every Thing Design is a book by Hatje Cantz which presents a large number (more than 700) of design works from the collection of Zurich Gestaltung Museum. It mainly shows prints and posters, but includes also a wide range of other objects from many famous designers. The book is, among books designed by Irma Boom (and some of her own library), on display at the Bijzondere Collecties Gallery, in Amsterdam.

everything design!

First of all the cover: it’s all black, with a white cheap potato peeler; visually it makes concrete what the title say: everything is design! Design is for everybody! The layout of the book presents the objects making interesting comparisons and associating them in couples which have a sort of connection. What’s interesting, in this couples, is that they do respond to a logic that can be less obvious than expected, as a time, place or artist order, but very explicit. Mainly, they are similar objects and visuals from very different periods and uses but with the same strength, the same conceptual value, the same way to visualize the zeitgeist of the period. So the cover of issue one of the magazine “Neue Grafik” (1958) showing the text perfectly insert into a square grid, is associated to a typeface from the early 20s’, the “new graphic” of the time. Two more recent comparison: the first shows the (famous) poster from Obey’s art for the electoral campaign of Obama in 2008 and the (as much) well known poster of Bob Dylan drawn during the 60’s by Milton Glaser, while the second present the famous Levi’s commercial with the Michelangelo’s David dressed up with Levi’s jeans short, with a more recent HnM’s poster of a beautiful and sensual girl wearing a tiny bikini. In the first couple is explicit the high moral value of the person represented, with the “Che Guevara alike” glance of Obama in the “hand-crafted”, old school appearance of the poster, and the streamy colorful hair of an outlined-comic looking Bob Dylan which transforms the pacifist songwriter into an icon. In the second there also is an iconic value which is a bit “debunk”, and while 30 years ago this value was embodied by a masterpiece of art, nowadays it is just the body of the women to be sold.

What i liked the most is the comparison that offers, which i think it’s a fundamental way of thinking in art and design, and the general look that encourages, contributing to shape better the word “design”, depicting the spirit of the time and taking it away from the idea of a competition between world known designers to create the most posh version of a lemon squeezer, and giving it the role of a discipline which applies to many levels and fields, a way to better resolve mankind problems. Design must be everything for everybody!

Thinking over the Thinkbook


Tuesday, September 7, 2010

When going inside the exhibition of Irma Boom I decided to look for the one book that made me want to grab it, huddle in a big fluffy chair and disappear behind it.

The SHV Thinkbook attracted me because it is plain black on the outside, like in the past many books were. Some of these ancient books also being on display (part of the private collection), I can see where she might have got her inspiration from.

Books to me are objects I love being around. They often bring back sentimental memories of a snug warm house and evenings spent divulging my favourite books again and again. And so does this book designed by Irma Boom.

I always thought there is something fascinating about books that are plain on the outside. They hardly reveal any of its mysteries at first glance and thus makes me curious about its contents. When you open it a whole world opens up before you. I wasn’t disappointed now. When you open the SHV Thinkbook you find colourful page after beautiful colourful cotton page, 2.136 pages of them! Within the letters of the title are hidden. Also, on the edge of the pages you can read a poem by Gerrit Achterberg.

Irma Boom wanted the book to be a voyage. For me the voyage already starts with goggling at its cover. Alas, that is as far as I am going to get, since it wasn’t allowed to touch any of the books.

All I can say is: it is a mighty shame I wasn’t allowed to take it home with me and discover its many secrets.

Irma Boom Book


Tuesday, September 7, 2010

I have chosen the book called SHV Thinkbook designed by Irma Boom.

This one caught the most my attention, although it is one of the most simple: black, thick, without any title, it is kind of brutal.  It looks like a simple dictionary. But we can discover the originality of the designer, because this book really doesn´t looks like another one. Because, it doesn´t has any title, only black without any symbol and when you look at the profile we can see the colorful side of the pages which contrast with the deep black of the front. It has something mysterious and unusual.

It has been designed in a way that you can´t guess what is inside (only maybe a strange geometric form white and red can symbolize

something). The cover of this book really makes me wondering  about  the content .

There is a details in this book that I found really beautiful, there are some few deep red bookmarks which go out between the pages. I like this three main colors (red, white and black).

Moreover , the story that Henk told us about this book makes it even more mysterious.

For the same reasons I found the book called Dutch Stampbook well designed. The same black, anything on the front page shows us the content, only a white peeler is appearing used as a kind of image of design (subject of the book).

Irma Boom is Patient


Wednesday, May 6, 2009

We went with school to the Graphic Design museum in Breda to the exposition ‘Who sets the standard?’. There were lots of nice things to see, and i found a book as well that was made by the Dutch designer Irma Boom that made me curious. It was laying on a table in a glass box, opened on one of the pages. Next to it you could find information on a computer touch screen about the maker and the book. This was also a very nice design, cause it worked very well and interesting to look into, very professional.
I want to know more about book design in general and i understand that this peticular book is a very remarkeble example. The ultimate book. So i’m going to investigate more about the maker Irma Boom and her designs.
The book is made for the SHV Holdings, from origin a cole trading company, but now a days it trades in food and other fuels and chemicals.

The design and the content are about the history of thi company itself but also about the family that owned it for all these years and reflects upon generations of living and working. There are just a few of them made, as the book was meant as a jubilee gift to high executives only. There is even a limited amount made specially in Chinees as it turned out after printing many of them were in china. It has never been forsales so it is quite rare to see one. I got the opportunity to see and look into the SHV Think Book myself at a private home of a lucky owner, and I found out how amazing a book design can be.

It was a great experience to go trough this book. It is a monument for the SHV, a travel trough the time, and it is far from a dry documentation. Irma Boom got into the content of her subject and you feel this. She tells the stories of the company in a playful and inventive way, it is filled with ingenious visual and linguistic jokes, poems, repetitions and personal stories, but because Irma Boom really knows what she is doing and directs it tightly, it never gets to much or chaotic.

THE SHV THINK BOOK

Fentener van Vlissingen is a philanthropist that supports several humanistic projects. When he searched for someone to design a jubilee book, he asked Irma Boom to do it. It was a work of five years and it is a good representation of all the work and effort and love that has been putted in the company itself. Read more as the story unfolds in this linked pdf……….

A group’s researched book-concepts


Monday, March 10, 2008

TM-City SMCS Warhol_Index TM-City SMCS

After many month we finally present the research results into 25 selected books from the “Collections Groenendijk”. During a one-hour event every student was presented with the opportunity to start-up a research into the manifest art or design concepts presented in these unique book designs. Designers Julia Born and Will Holder were presented through an interview-DVD made by the graduate program of the “Werkplaats Typografie Arnhem” for the Chaumont festival workshop 2005. Others projects, by Richard Niessen or Andy Warhol, were presented at an visit to the Stedelijk CS, where their books were displayed in context. Coralie Vogelaar (a Sandberg Master) came to visit us in person to give insight in her work and ideas and lecture on the concept behind her latest publication “Masters of Rietveld: design in the 21st Century” published recently by the Sandberg Insitute /Design [above: Niessen TM-City / Warhol Index-Book

A New Art World
Caetano de Carvalho on “A New Art World” by Richard Niessen + Ad de Jong

Research material was edited down to A4 sized guided tours into these subjects. All subjects presented in this list are also available as hard copy prints at the Research Folders at the library. The investigation focussed on the following book titles: Ed van der Elsken’s “Love Story in St Germain“, Irma Boom’s Grafisch Nederland 2005 on Color, “Start A New Art World”(published above), the acclaimed cooperation between photographer Geert van Kesteren and designer Linda van Deursen “Why Mister Why“, “Hhalo” by Julia Born and Rebecca Stephany’s “Archiving Today”project. Last 3 ladies all teaching at graphic design department.

SpoerrieThe ThingThe Thing Norm design Swiss TypeS M L XL

Daniel Spoerrie “An Anecdoted Topography of Chance“(extra info), Dieter Roth’s “Dieter Roth Band 10“, “S M L XL“by Koolhaas, Sandbergs “Experimenta Typographica“: Mens Sana in Corpore Sano and “Counterprint” by Karel Martens. “The Thing” by Norm designstudio, Andy Warhols classic 1967 “Index-Book”, Will Holder’s “Catalogue“: starring Gijs Muller, Edward Ruscha’s “Colored Peolple”, Richard Niessen’s piece de résistance TM-City.

Why Mister Why GN2005:Color

Sandberg Institute Master: Coralie Vogelaar with “The Photoshop” and “De Hedendaagse Ontwerper”, Gerald van der Kaap’s original ” HoverHover” and the monumental cooperation between Jonathan Barnbrook and Damien Hirst “I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one to one, always, forever, now”.

Dot Dot Dot X Hester Permanent Food 15

Finaly some highly conceptual magazine concepts like, the 1980’s I-D magazine 2, Jop van Bennekom with Re-magazine: ‘Hester‘, Permanent Food or Stuart Bailey’s “Dot Dot Dot” magazine.


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