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Book Builder: A Conversation with Irma Boom

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Amsterdam-based book designer Irma Boom talks about book-making and her life in design
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Dutch-born Irma Boom is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost book designers, and is the youngest person ever to receive the prestigious Gutenberg Prize for a body of work. Her books are distinguished by her experimental approach to formats and a willingness to take design risks; she incorporates the often-overlooked edges of books into the overall design, is happy to challenge the assumption that a lengthy book requires an index or individual page numbers, and has produced an all-white book for Chanel that relies on embossing rather than ink to convey the content. Over 50 of her titles are included in the permanent collection at MoMA, in the Collection of the Centre Pompidou, and in The Irma Boom Archive at the Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam.

Irma Boom. Photo: Theo Krijgsman

Her recent work beyond books includes the so-called “Knot & Grid” curtain for the renovation of the North Delegates’ Lounge at the United Nations Headquarters; a textile collection produced by Knoll; and a new logo and visual identity for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Boom designs her books in an atypical process closer to architecture than graphic design, building one or more small-scale 3D models while she works to help visualize the finished project. For a 2013 retrospective at the Institut Néerlandais in Paris, Boom designed and installed the exhibition herself. The exhibition catalogue includes an introduction by architect Rem Koolhaas and text by Mathieu Lommen, conservator of the Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam, plus a statement about books from Boom. The catalogue was issued in two sizes: mini (1.5 x 2 inches), which weighs in at under 2 ounces, and XXL (13.5 x 18 inches), at nearly 16 pounds. The mini is just about 8/1000th the weight of the XXL, but the content is identical.

Just before a conversation she took part in with Design Matters host Debbie Millman in New York on Wednesday evening, January 29—an event presented by AIGA/NY and Designers & Books—Boom answered some questions from Angela Riechers about her work and life.

James Jennifer Georgina, 2010, by Jennifer Butler, “a story in postcards” designed by Irma Boom. Photo: Courtesy of Irma Boom

 

Angela Riechers: A miniature catalogue of your work, Irma Boom: Biography in Books, was issued in conjunction with your retrospective exhibition in Amsterdam in 2010. For the 2013 Paris show, an updated, slightly larger edition called Irma Boom: The Architecture of the Book was produced.

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Irma Boom: The Architecture of the Book
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