Designblog

As I walk into the silence of the library I think about the strategy I will use to find my second book. I think about my three previous used keywords: instinct, courage, and contradiction. 

The first logic step would be to firstly follow the keyword ‘instinct’. So I slowly walk by the thousands of books, observing, stroking the covers, hoping I will be pulled towards one, like a magnet. As the pressure of silence and choosing begins to come up, I decide to use the computer. Still the source which is easiest and most tempting to turn to. 

The letters which form the word instinctive do not yield anything. It would’ve been an interesting find. Finding a word with the keyword ‘instinctive’ through an opposite way.

There goes my easy way out to find a book which I think would connect with my previous three keywords. 

So I continue with the second, courage. This time  few books show up, but none in one of shelves we are allowed to take a book from. Another sight, another loss of another keyword. 

Finally I put my last keyword in the source machine, contradiction. Last but not least, it results in a find. A book by Robert Venturi: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. I followed the directions that were given me and found a boring looking book on the second top shelve. Opposite from my first book I noticed the cover was very flexible and didn’t feel like a ‘concrete’, constructed book. A bit disappointed with my find I sat down and began to observe the book. Having very little knowledge about architecture I noticed that I had some ‘primitive’ expectations of the book. As said before it had a flexible cover, which stood opposite from my

dav

. I had expected a firm book, since I refer architecture to firm structures. Strong, solid, tight and well constructed buildings. In that sense the  format of the book really was contradictory to it’s subject. 

717 ven 1

Project on the city


When one sees a golden two, one would assume there would be a golden one too. In the space of the library, on a shelf filled with spines of books, I found the pair. One of the books had a golden ‘’1’’ on its spine, the spine on the right had a golden ‘’2’’. I immediately linked them as a pair, an unseparated duo that could be read apart, but had to be put next to each other in a space like this. The sizes were exactly the same, oddly enough. I would like to assume that a follow up book, is a bigger, greater, thicker,  larger, better book. But in this case it was not.
 When one sees a golden one, one would not assume there would be golden two too. One book can live by itself, but a second book would need a partner two life. A duo, a pair, contains a two. First I took apart the book with the 2. The 1 lived peaceful by itself on the shelf. But when I turned the tables and took away the 1 instead of the 2. The sight of just a book with a big golden ‘’2’’ written on, was an odd sight. No, not odd, it was peculiar. I kept staring at it and walking back and forth in the space, to figure out why it was such a

peculiar sight to see this book without its partner in crime. And suddenly it came to me. I could never imagine someone courageously putting a random number on the spine in such a fat font and such a big size. It almost covered one third of this spine. They did not ask for subtlety, it needed to be ‘’grande’’. That was an act of boldness, just putting it out there.

Hesitating to grab a book, I kept strolling through the library, my eyes scanning the shelves. In the back of my mind I knew that no matter what book I choose, it would be the most unappealing book in the library. That is my curse. The ability of picking out the worst looking book with the most tedious content between thousands of books, is something I was cursed with since I could read.  Eventually my eyes laid on the spine of a book that had a black plastic binding, protected by another layer of see through plastic. Odd, I thought whilst hoping this spine would not be as disappointing as always. I grabbed the book and I immediately grasped for air. Having a eye for good taste, my eyes were burning when they saw the dirty undefinable brown-greyish colour of the book. The layout of the cover had was as if someone wanted to have a minimalistic design but used a free preset example from a website. The title, in ariel -the designer should apologise himself-, had kilometres of blank space in between the words which suggests a failed attempt of making it look graphically interesting.
‘’Designing              and Building

a
Studio                  Glass Furnace’’
In the right corner an asymmetrical shape with seven corners. The librarian thought it was probably a shape with a function, because they put the sticker with the barcode inside of the shape. The back of the book is blank. It is for the best.

As soon as I browsed through the book, I immediately recognised the origin by its typeface. It was a thesis of a student at the Rietveld. One thing Rietveld students love, is courier new. It is alternative, it is cool, it is new wave. I felt bad for this student, that not only the outside of the book was boring but as so the inside and the outside… I thought.
Serious looking graphs and tables with numbers filled every second page, until they turned into dull series of real sepia photos, glued onto the pages, in which the was per step documented how to build a furnace. This part suited the whole book, but also gave it a sort of charm.
  Whilst I was about to close the book and finish my writing, I found two more analog photos hidden in the back of the book. One of them was the missing photo seventeen in the book. But the second one was an image of people walking down the canals in Amsterdam. From across the street a lady in red was looking right into the camera. She was my saviour of this book.
 

I had difficulties reading the title, which made me pick up the book in the first place. Different kinds of black letters which reminded me of the graphic bauhaus logo. Since I am a pretentious, yet troublesome, art kid I had listened to some bauhaus earlier that day, which might have affected my interest in trying to read the title. Though it was impossible to read the title without knowing what was actually written. Thankfully the title was also written with bold letters in the bottom of the left corner; “JURRIAAN SCHROFER (1926 – 90) Restless typographer”.

This intrigued me to know more about this Jurriaan Schrofer. Why would someone choose a typo for the cover of a book, which you cannot read in the first place and in what way is this man restless?

I tried to get some more information about this book by looking at the backside, where you usually see some information, or a short summary about the book. But it was just the same incomprehensive letters, but this time reversed. A cool way of dealing with the backspace of a book, respect! Not being able to fully understand what the book really was about intrigued me even more to choose it, I wanted to know what it was all about.

I liked the binding of the book, a japanese binding, which you very rarely see in a bookstore or library. The pages are put together with a special way of stitching, which I find very aesthetically pleasing to look at. It looks homemade yet professional at the same time. I want to learn how to bind books that way. The japanese binding of the binding also gives the impression of a exclusive and a bit luxurious, like “this is not an ordinary book you are holding in your hand”. And just like everyone else I want to feel special every now and then.

757.3 sch

Ideograms and how they can become drawings , loosing their first property of transmitting information , to turn into images we can just contemplate : this is what interested me the most  inside the first book I picked up and this is why I chose « The Art of writing » as as second step. This book gathers a large range of approaches towards writing from different countries and cultures. On every right side of the double pages inside the book, you can find images depicting those ideograms, all in black and white, with an old presentation : captions on the side, numbers & letters under the images :  this gives me the feeling to dive into fragments of a huge archive, travelling through excerpts just like in those history textbooks in high school. The ruined aspect of the book as well as the old list  with all the borrowing dates since 1971 emphasize even more this feeling you can have while entering in an space full of stories. I also appreciate the big « a » on the 4th cover : the « a » as the « starting point of the civilisation » with the creation of the western alphabet ; placed in the end, a kind of inversion is created that i also find interesting. While browsing through the pages, I could notice in the images how present were the ideograms inside architecture and space : on lightpanels of an Asian street, engraved on a south american’s stele or on a catholic church and many more. There is this need for humans to implant visible thoughts in their environments. This need, almost primal, is also what touched me because it carries at the same time a sincerity almost primal (see the page called « primitive signs ») and a desire to understand the world in a more objective way in order also to transmit this knowledge to others.

757.3 une 1

The book has been rent just one time, twenty years ago, the stamp says FEB.1998.

I don’t really understand what it is about,

I don’t understand the language either, it is written in Deutsch.

all I know, is that it’s related to architecture.

In a way I like the fact that I’m not clear with the subject, it allows me to establish a universe only by looking at the images and their disposition.

I see chairs,

I see radiators,

I see tables,

I see tennis courts,

It reminds me of working space universe, because of all those trials to organize the surrounding and the contents.

I like the fact that the images are moved in the space of the page, that page is not full filled by colours but sometimes just by blank areas.

I see that as an experimentation of the object

It as something common, to my sense, to the user’s guide aesthetics, but in a way, i find something strange about this book.

As if it was telling a story

As if it was about the absence of the person

The presence of this objects evokes me the absence but it is also because of their nature, especially concerning the round tables and the chairs

Everything is deconstructed and re-constructed

The lines are merging together

The shapes evolve through the pages

You can distinguish objects

From abstraction to objectivity

The thin black lines on the radiant white paper

assemble,

cut,

paste,

disassemble,

rebuild,

understand,

edit

708.5 hoo 1

I looked up books with my first keyword: soft.
Soon I got guided to the first floor in the library section 779,0 .

It was my first time in that section of the library, and that somehow made it feel like an adventure. A search for something I didn’t even know yet.
The section is all about textiles, wowing, carpets and all subjects related to fabrics. That pleased me, and I would occasionally take out a book I found interesting.

But then as I was gliding my hands though the shelf, I found it: A soft velvet book, in the shade of deep marron red. “De fluwelen verleiding” by Hans ferrée.

My immediately impression of the book reminded me a lot of my previous choice. A5, slim and with an unfamiliar language on the cover.
But the more I looked the more it gained its own personality and charm.
It makes quite an impression: velvet make one think of value and the rich cursive letter speaks of abundance. It claims your attention – this book is far from modest.

The nature of the velvet welcomes you. It felt like it had been waiting there for me, begging to be touched. The color made it immediately important – royal.  Such a deep red color gives it a certain association with power, history, strong emotions, and even a touch of danger – a blood red warning. A glimpse of fobidden fruit.

The title “De fluwelen verleiding” is written in clear-white cursive and quite demanding, as the take on a certain space on the cover. The text quickly realized to be Dutch by Henk Groenendijk, and translated to: “The velvet seduction”. Amazing. Suddenly the book seems more erotic and sensual.

In the middle of the front there is an odd symbol: an interesting graphic mark in black and white. It is the only shiny part of the book, which only adds to the mystery. The pattern of the mark reminds me of a small carpet on a loom. A quite nostalgic feel.

The back is without words, as to say that red velvet is enough information, and the spine quite worn, the letters almost dissolved. Maybe from the tool of time, or maybe from greedy hands?

You could imagine such a book to be too much – distasteful and kitsch.
But for me it is quite the opposite. I see this book as a classic.

779,0 fer 1.

Continuing my Quest for the Dull. I did not find any books by the tagwords connected to my previous result: ’Boring’ or ‘Seductive’. Only the third and less subjective ‘Interior Architecture’ gave a match. Though, this match wasn’t the ‘right’ book for me, in the sense that it was maybe too mediocre, but its neighboring book did catch my eye. It looked kind of dull, but at the same time demanded an autonomous authority. Not so dull after all, and therefore forcing me to adapt the definition of my Quest. Perhaps it was the rather small size (15 x 15 cm.), or the textless spine. I realized how the blanco spine is actually quite a sensation in this library, considering that most books contain either a title, some text or other imagery on this part the book. At the same time did this book blend in well with the rest. Just like all other copies, it is plasticized, and then some: front, back, top, bottom – everything drenched in the monotonous clammy layer by the name of adhesive cellophane. A perfect recipe for blending in, at least in the world of books.

Even though this grey square of about 50 sheets of paper could be considered boring, there are a few elements that make this otherwise invisible copy stand out by its demand for adapted care-taking. For example, the thinness of the book made it impossible for the librarian to place the code sticker in its entirety on the spine, the rest of it had to be placed on the cover. I can imagine when doing this job, the irregularity of books like this is quite bothersome. A visual rupture in the repetitive rhythm of the surrounding stickers. Besides, because of this invisibility, it is harder for a person wanting to look up a book only by the code he/she was given by the library’s database. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to it, the code was missing, or at least not visible at first sight. Maybe that’s why this book has this size; it only wants to be noticed by people who don’t follow the code, but choose by its appearance only. A stubborn little fella, this “cDIM Valencia”. Hypocritical even. Its innocent appearance, yet sneaky way of asking for attention.

774.4 cat 17

The library in the Rietveld Academie is organized in a spiral form and looking through the books in it’s shelves is much like wandering the streets of Amsterdam as they circle around and around. This layout motivates random discovery but abstains in aiding any targeted intentions.

Luckily, the assignment did not require any knowledge of the library or the contents therein.

With a vague idea of which sections we were to choose a book from, I gazed upon the tall typography section. The individual shelves are lined with countless textbooks and magazines; each bearing their distinct design along the spine. The magazines tend to utilize bright colors, which, when aligned beside one another, blur into an inaccesable mass. Amidst this sea of color I spotted a tall beige book with a black title. The contrast to the surrounding books made it unique. The book’s individuality in this context can be attributed to it’s age; It was printed in 1955.

I took the book off of the shelf the study it in detail. The cover is made of laminated canvas and the title on the spine reads: ALBERT KAPR DEUTSCHE SCHRIFTKUNST.

The font reminded me of the font found on my family grave. Sturdy and very legible with well proportioned serifs. The front depicts a small white on black graphic of writing tools in a frame of black letters. The graphic is humble and unassuming; almost disappearing into the distance of the large beige cover. The first page reads in German “Versuch einer neuen historischen Darstellung” almost apologetically labeling itself a mere  “attempt”.

This honesty won me over immediately and I started leafing through the book. Old battered pages depicted forgotten fonts and the names of their creators. I recognized the name Schneidler from old correspondences between him and my grandfather that I had been reading that very morning. This made me feel like a historian piecing together the forgotten past of his ancestors. Maybe F.H. Ernst Schneidler held this very book. All speculation aside, I seem to have picked the book because I subconsciously recognized aspects of my own identity presented in print. I am book. Book am I.

 
757.3 kap 1

    This is honey.

Network, collage and rebel were the keywords for my second book search. This time I found it quicker than the first time. I went up, walked to the fashion book shelf and grabbed the first book that I saw. The reason for me to walk immediately to the fashion book shelf is simple; because I am just more interested in fashion than I am in graphic design or architecture. And there it was, exactly what I needed and also one of the books that I considered taking the first book search I did a week earlier. 

The cover of the book appeared to be a collage. In my opinion not the most exiting collage I have ever seen because of the simple, minimal and grey colors. But also because of the words on the cover and the cutout of an outfit which is, on one half, not totally “finished” yet. Or they just didn’t want to show their opinion about the content of the book.  

While I was browsing through the book I noticed that my first association was my second keyword; network. First of all, because of the few black and white fashion images. And second of all, because for some reason I always associate fashion with networking. Probably because I live in a surrounding where a lot of my friends work in fashion, go to parties and show their faces in the most beautiful outfits. A topic I also spoke about in my first text.

I see a lot of similarity between my two chosen books. But only from the outside, not from the content. For instance they are both the same size, and the are both fashion related. But I also see a big contrast in the two books. Where one is more rebellious formalized, the other is, for me, more focust on the minimalistic graphics.  

907 bog 1

Part 2

In English.

I wrote the first part of this assignment in Dutch because I can express myself way better in my mother tongue than in a language I’ve mostly learned from the webs.

And I have to be honest with you; I’m terrible at grammar.

Anyways.

Here’s the deal.

The assignment was to find a book that covered all the tags (preferably) from the previous book we choose from the library.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Well, for me it was an easy one man’s one minds one seconds job.

My tags from the previous book were; pink, fashionable and difference.

Since the last book caught my attention by its colour; pink. Had me at the fashion and identity and since it was a timeline to show the difference between the different years I choose difference.

Which are, of course subjective tags since they have something to do with my opinion.

To get back to the way it worked out for me; I immediately figured that the most fashionable things are to be found in the fashion section.

It can differ from person to person but for me it’s fashion that’s fashionable.

I choose the same strategy: keep your eyes open for the colour pink and then I wanted something that had difference in it, keep in mind: I was not looking for a timeline.

My eyes caught a book that contained some pink spots and a pink brand name; now I did not know what was written about the subject precisely, but I knew Barbie.

The book I choose almost in a split second is a book about Barbie in different time areas and different clothing styles and I could not Imagine a book that would fit better than this one.

This is a book too that concerns my heart and reminds me of my grandma big time.

She collects old barbie dolls and makes them clothes, I once got a vintage barbie myself and a book about 50 years of barbie.

Plus; I played a lot with the barbies when I was younger. Maybe these factors effected my brain a little.

But I’ve got to say this;

I’m happy that my mind leads me to what I like (which is not weird at all and very logical). I forgot that your brain is an unconscious piece of mush hand that’s great.

So hereby; I’ll add one tag;

Oma.

gerrit rietveld academie library : catalog no. 906.6-jac-1

Ik snap een hele boel niet en mensen snappen het niet als ik zeg dat ik een hele boel niet snap. Ik bedoel er ook niet mee dat ik het serieus niet snap; eigenlijk bedoel ik dat ik een vreselijk verward en chaotisch persoon ben en dat ik mij nooit ooit goed kan focussen op iets. Dat heeft natuurlijk heerlijk geholpen bij het uitzoeken van een boekje omdat wij een boek moesten uitkiezen vanuit ons innerlijke gevoel. En mijn innerlijke gevoel en innerlijk leven schreeuwt; kies op kleur liefje. Dat deed ik ook. Dit was een eitje voor mij; aangezien ik altijd een boek uitzoek doormiddel van de kaft en letterlijk bijna nooit een boek met een lelijke kaft koop. Dus ging ik maar met de meest hippe kleur van 2018; roze, want ik volg de trend en ik vind het genieten. Ik greep met mijn zweterige knuisjes naar het lekkere boekje en voelde meteen dat het asmr voor mijn hand was. Sommige boeken die kan je zo verrukkelijk bewegen en dan maken ze ook een vol-boek geluid; waar ik persoonlijk uren naar kan luisteren. Flexibel en sexy. Gadver nee een boek sexy noemen is echt iets waar mensen voor opgepakt moeten worden. In ieder geval pakte ik het boek op en liep ik er een paar jaren mee rond terwijl ik verder opzoek ging. Boek na boek na boek na boek na boek na boek en ik bleef met dat ene boek ‘wat eigenlijk een van mijn eerste keuzes was’ rond paraderen. Het boek was ondertussen mijn lichaamstempratuur geworden en zodra ik dat opmerkten bedacht ik; lol, deze wordt ‘em bitches. Hij werd het dus. Natuuuuuurlijk ging ik erin bladeren; om precies te zijn heb ik het hele boek bekeken op weg naar mijn huis; ong 1;30 min; omdat het een easy read was, daar mee bedoel ik: Geen tekst en alleen maar plaatjes en ik vond hét echt leuk, nul spijt van mijn keuzen want het boek is van i-D; een magazine over identiteit en vooral identiteit onder jonge mensen. Ik moet nu wel een klein beetje uitleggen wat de inhoud is om te kunnen uitleggen waarom ik het leuk vind. Het is een boek met de tijdlijn van i-D van tachtiger jaren tot en met 2000. Elke bladzijde is de voorkant van i-D of iets typerend van die tijd met een toepasselijke quote van een persoon die in die tijd beroemd was. Nu kom ik op waarom ik het leuk vind; Ik hou van tijdlijnen, verschillen tussen ideeën van de tijd bekijken, mensen kijken en ik hou enorm enorm van verschillende soorten stijlen bekijken en gewoon een beetje plaatjes loeren. Daarbij kwam ook dat mijn favoriete actrice die groot was in de jaren 80 door de film Betty Blue er ook in zat en daarmee was het voor mij eigenlijk al priem. Kortom; geen spijt van mijn keuzen, geen spijt at all. Groetjos Minnon.

gerrit rietveld academie library : catalog no. 754.5-jon-1

“My eternal soul,

Observe your vow

In spite of the night

And the day on fire.”

-Arthur Rimbaud, A Season In Hell

The big gazing eyes on the cover of the book grabbed my attention at the first sight,It reminded me of this poem from the French poet Rimbaud.

I also like it in black and white.It is not that I don’t like color. On the contrary, I think I like color too much to tolerant it being abused in a wrong way. And I don’t always have enough time to find the right color or the right combination of colors, so to keep everything minimal, I developed this obsession for black.

I also like it because the whole book is very thin, I like the artists who keep things minimal.I believe they spent more time in choosing behind the work, to only keep the best things.

When I opened the book, the vogue and zoomed-in images, it’s almost becoming some kind of abstract painting.I can only see the back of the models in the most of pictures, that also makes me feel attracted, the mystery in the movement go their body. They come and go at ease, at their own pace. They are very independent while I felt invited, but there is no pressure that I have to either.

I also really like the casual and comfortable feeling when they are in those clothes, they can run and dance at ease.It is them who is wearing the clothes, but not only as a living hanger to present those clothes.I think fashion design for me, in the end will come back to the point of how it actually makes you feel when you wear it.Do you feel comfortable in it? Do you feel restricted ?Does this clothes make you feel more of being yourself or somebody else?If it is somebody else, is it a better person or a worse person?

Information about the book:

Dries Van Noten   Women’s Collection Summer 1998

907.8

Strolling around a library without having an idea what you’re looking for, felt just as difficult as drifting around a supermarket without knowing what to eat… I found myself a bit lost in feeling what I wanted. Hoping that all of a sudden I’d instinctively grab a book and have an inner feeling telling me it was right. Which didn’t happen the way I expected, but did eventually happen.

The first thing I noticed as I picked up the book I chose, was the complete contradictory which was visible by the title and the cover. A book about textiles, with a textile cover, covered with a plastic layer. 

Is this done on purpose? What does it serve for? For the sake of protection? The sake of deifying? 

On the first sight they immediately play with layers, plastic, prints, the textile cover.

The black big square where the title is shown on, feels badly placed. A bombastic frame which gives a feeling of ‘harshness’, creates an opposite atmosphere of the rest of a book. 

All seems to be a courageous game. Super well designed, but risky. 

Colours jumping from soft green and blue, to bright orange. Straight, direct lines, covered by seemingly hand drawn, disorganised patterns. As an organised mess. And to think this was just the cover. 

Thick, narrow (29 cm), not quite even pages, which show bright, colourful, and diverse displays. From documentation, to installations, finished works, sketches . This resulted in a feeling of  ‘travelling’. By the diversity of the pages, there was a curious feeling arising, not knowing what to stumble on on the next page. As writing about it now, I realise I find it a playful, coordinated book.

The few lines that are written are carefully placed. Usually in the upper right corner. On the background, leaving all the space for the work, which tell  and show you most. 

But the real decisive moment was when I looked down. I was wearing the book.

Yes this is the right book to take.

779.7-stro-1

The first reason for me to choose this book was because of the form. The book had a strong appearance because of the size, compact but heavy. Also I loved the fact that it didn’t matter were you started. You could begin in the middle of the book but also at the end. The randomness where to begin was a very important part for me to choose this book. It didn’t tell a story but it gave you an impression of the time and subject of the book. The raw and tacky images were cut together and therefore intense to look at. It got my attention because, for instance, it gave me inspiration to make more collages. The book is very well designed for someone like me, very visual. I think allot in visuals in order to understand a concept or subject. The moment I took this book from the bookshelf and quickly looked through it, my hart made a small leap and so I knew that I had to take it.

As I was browsing through the book I immediately had an emotional relation to it. I thought about my mother. It felt like I was browsing through her student life, it had the same atmosphere as her stories about that time. Crazy parties where people show a different side of them or wear extravagant clothes, alcohol, drugs, sex. To provoke or really to be themselves? To create a conversation or to rebel against the “normal” society? To really want to be a part of something. Of course all these thoughts came after looking at the book and knowing more about the content. But also this was my subjective reaction to the book. I tried to relate these thought to myself and my surrounding. Am I living the design of this book at the Rietveld Academie? Am I experiencing life like a collage? Do I also have to dig in to the centre of this scene in order to be part of something? To show my face at every event that is taking place, to socialize and network? Or can my work speak for itself and be successful without people knowing me? 

907.8-fri-1

What book to pick in an art academy’s library? Each one so carefully designed, asking for individual attention and therefor disappear into an abundance of ‘designiness’. It makes me long for the boring book that could potentially surprise me with its content. Perhaps one of those plastic file folders on the top shelves hide some curiosity. Unfortunately, I find out that these are not for students to be looked into – the Quest for Boringness continues. My eyes are caught by a book with a textless beige spine, carrying only the library’s tag: “718.6 pov. 1”.

The color is more band-Aid like beige; it would blend in well with my skin, or my grandmother’s sweater. The surface is slightly textured, but the book’s front has been plasticized by the library for protection. To me, this adds to the sensation of monotony, since so many other books were treated the same way. All individual books have been esthetically democratized by this layer of plastic. This endangers even the most exotic looking book to drown in a pool of textureless mass. This book’s only unique touch might be its shape, which, unlike most surrounding books, is wider then it is tall. Nevertheless, it still hasn’t excited me. Bingo.

Flipping through its pages, I see prints of black and white photographs depicting shop windows, -interiors and -facades. Repeatedly placed on every other page, accompanied with a short description. These photos focus on the design (architecture) that is used to sell other design (product). These designs are made to lure the viewer in; not by their boringness, but their promise of exclusivity. Not much unlike these books in the library. In search for the dull, I ended up with a book about seduction and exclusivity.

I’m quite fascinated by these images. Maybe because I once worked as a sales assistant in a luxury fashion store. A frequent visitor was a well-known Dutch architect, whose experience in designing various (Prada) stores apparently made him a valid person to complain about our bad lighting system. It was too yellow and not bright enough. However, I think he kept visiting our store for its unpretentious appeal; no overly designed cabinets, shelves or fancy lighting systems. A store with a no-nonsense atmosphere; selling quality products through quality service. Like a boring book with neat photographs.

code: 718.6 pov. 1

In the library, I was first overwhelmed by the fact that I had to make a choice.
…
Because of my mood, I was drawn to all the books which seemed to hold a certain amount of history – in other words, old and mysterious.
I was lingering at a big blue book with no inscriptions, when I first saw it:

SCHRIFTKUNDE, SCHREIBÛBUNGEN UND SKIZZIEREN
Ein kleines Lehrbuch der Schrift für Setzer und Graphiker
– Von Jan Tschichold
Almost too thin to be of any importance. A5, 77 pages, and rather uneven around the edges. The color is a light slightly yellow brown, the main title in black capital letters and the further inscription in dark toned orange cursive.

Maybe I felt a bit of myself reflected in the design, or maybe I was drawn by the nostalgia and romance I often ascribe to objects which are a bit ‘old-fashioned’.  A weakness of mine.

Immediately I felt the need to give this book a certain personification.
To claim that this book has a character, and with it a history hidden in its scruffy pages.  It is almost stoic, with its simple design.
Moderate, German = serious, important.

The plastic cover for protection is exhausted, and has been repaired, giving the book an even dodgier look. The plastic reflects the light and makes me think of grease shining on the forehead of old sweaty men.

Although my German is a bit rusty, I try to decipher the title; SCHRIFTKUNDEN – ‘the art of writing’.
The text on the back is a bit more confusing, but overall I get some words: Typographic, graphic art, learning and maybe something about photography too.

The backside only confirms my notion of this book and its author.
Jan Tschichold makes his own introduction of the book, mentioning its precise size (148 x 210 mm), number of edition (112), publisher, something about the paper and the prize of the book (5 Franken), which I find amusing.

Typography – the artwork of creating letters and numbers.

The beauty of an alphabet has always fascinated me.
I remember making up my own alphabets as a child:
Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Xx, Ww, Yy, Zz, Ææ, Øø, Åå. I would write them over and over again.
Different sizes, lengths of the lines, curves, dips and turns,
Words as drawings, numbers as symbols. Somehow it was important for me to claim the letters. Taking over, making it into my personal alphabet, in a sense conquering the language.

After this notion I felt softness. A sense of safety mixed with the slight sadness of nostalgia. I remembered other things. Smells, touches., sounds.
And I felt grateful.

Book number, 757.4-tsch-5