Irma Boom

Last updated
Irma Boom
IrmaBoomMaagdenhuis.jpg
Irma Boom presenting her book Grafisch Nederland 2005 Kleur/Colour at the University of Amsterdam, November 2004
Born (1960-12-15) 15 December 1960 (age 63)
Lochem, Gelderland, Netherlands
Nationality Dutch
Education AKI Art Academy
Known for Graphic design
AwardsGutenberg Prize, 2001
Website irmaboom.nl

Irma Boom (born 15 December 1960) is a Dutch graphic designer who specializes in bookmaking. Boom has been described as the "Queen of Books," [1] having created over 300 books and is well reputed for her artistic autonomy within her field. Her bold experimental approach to her projects often challenges the convention of traditional books in both physical design and printed content.

Contents

Boom has been noted as the youngest recipient of the Gutenberg Prize , an award recognizing outstanding services to the advancement of the book arts. [2] [3] [4] A selection of Boom's books are held in the permanent collection of MoMA, [5] and a personalized Irma Boom Archive has been set up at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, showcasing Boom's work.

Biography

Born in Lochem, The Netherlands in 1960, Boom was the youngest child of nine in her family. [6] Her venture into book design came by accident while pursuing painting at the AKI Academy of Art & Design. [7] [8] Boom had walked into a lecture on book design, and so profound was its impact that it inspired her to drop painting and join the graphic design department. [9] Here she found a love for Swiss typography [10] and began developing her creative voice.

Boom attended the AKI art academy in Enschede, Netherlands, where she pursued a B.F.A in graphic design. [3] During this time she interned at various offices including the Dutch Government Publishing and Printing Office in The Hague, Studio Dumbar, [11] and The Dutch Television (NOS) design department. Boom had applied to intern at Total Design in Amsterdam, where Wim Crouwel was director, but had been rejected by his colleagues for mixing too many typefaces. Her work was far too experimental for a firm that was used to strict typographic convention.

Boom experienced her first job as both an editor and designer during her time at the Dutch Government Publishing and Printing Office in The Hague. It was here that she was noticed by Ootje Oxenaar, a designer of Dutch banknotes, who invited her to design two catalogues for special edition postage stamps between years 1987 and 1988. [12] To him, she was the 'designer of the crazy ads'. [1] The annual Dutch postage stamp books was considered a prestigious opportunity with previous designers had including Wim Crouwel, Karel Martens, and Gert Dumbar. Boom's experimental style was evident in this particular publication, through the rich layers of information and imagery. Boom structured the book in a Japanese style binding and had text crossing multiple pages with printed folds and translucent paper. Though well received by Oxenaar, this project drew a lot of public outcry for being overtly experimental in comparison to previous editions. Boom received much hate mail, particularly from stamp collectors. However, this controversy brought her name into the public stage and established her name as a designer.

Upon graduating during the 1980s, Boom decided to return to the Dutch Government Publishing and Printing Office where she worked for another five and a half years. It gave her the opportunity to jump right into the shoes of a designer rather than an assistant designer. During this time she became acquainted with Paul Fentener van Vlissingen who would invite her to design the SHV thinkbook—a book which eventually elevated her status to a design star.

Boom founded the Irma Boom Office in Amsterdam in 1991. She continued to tackle projects nationally and internationally in both the cultural and commercial sectors. Since 1992, she has been a critic at Yale University, and has both lectured and given workshops worldwide. She had also tutored at Jan van Eyck Academie, Masstricht in the Netherlands between 1998 and 2000. Her work has been shown at numerous international exhibitions, including her own solo exhibition in Amsterdam in 2011. [13] She had been a member of the Supervisory Board Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam between 2004 and 2011 and has been a member of the board Premsela Foundation, Amsterdam since 2008.

Building books

Boom's books take on an architectural form and she views them as a unique medium for delivery of information. A thorough reflection of a book's content leads Boom to her design decisions. It is her aim to enhance the readers' understanding while at the same time creating an object of beauty, with quality and permanence. [14] Boom considers the entire landscape of the book including the edges. She builds three-dimensional models in miniature scale to aid in the development of her books. From typography to material, every detail Boom applies to her projects possesses an underlying logic. [9]

Unconventional typographic trademarks of Boom may include the use of oversized type which successively shrinks from the opening to end of her book. This claims is a way to lure people into reading the introductory pages. [9]

Boom also makes use of various finishing in her printed material such as embossing and die cuts. In her commissioned book for Chanel, Chanel N ͦ5, Boom printed an entire 300 page book devoid of ink, using instead embossed text and image to create a semi-invisible narrative of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. [14] The book is completely white and housed in a black box. The concept behind the book was inspired by the nature of perfume—it is best understood in an olfactive, not visual, manner—and relies on lesser dominant senses to tell the story.

Scent is another unusual feature Boom has utilized in her book design. Her conceptual book design for The Road Not Taken has 718 pages printed using ink mixed with a base of beef bouillon. Coffee filter paper is another unusual material choice.

Creating a sensory tactile experience when designing and making books is very important to Boom and she aims to inspire discovery and interaction. Some of her books may be devoid of page numbers, or index. She may even have the book printed entirely in reversed chronological order. Book covers may be left white or blank and a book's scale distorted in size and thickness. Inner pages may have elaborately chosen colour codes or hidden motifs. [9] Every little detail is analyzed to maximize its engagement potential in contrast to its digital counterparts.

Boom introduced the idea of a 'fat book'; that is, books that are remarkably thick. When asked what would make her create a book that was two inches tall and half as thick, she replied: [15]

The book is small because whenever I make a book, I start by making a tiny one. Usually I make five, six or seven for each book, as filters for my ideas and to help me to see the structure clearly. I have hundreds of those small books and am so fond of them. I've always wanted to make one for publication, but no one has ever wanted to do it. And I thought, well, this time, I can.

Titled Irma Boom: The Architecture of the Book, it contains 704 pages and 450 images. She has received extensive media coverage of her work, and Alice Rawsthorn writing for the New York Times profiled her in 2010. [16]

Boom has designed most of her books with creative freedom in her designs. She designed a book titled Beautiful Ugly by Sarah Nuttall, with an olive-green colored cover and no pictures or text. "The book was designed in Amsterdam by Irma Boom, and I thank her for her extraordinary eye and prodigious talent for making books beautiful." [17]

Notable books

Irma Boom has created over 200 books. [18] A selection of her books can be found at the permanent collection of the Architecture & Design department, MoMA.

SHV thinkbook 1996-1896

This book was the landmark book of Boom's career. [1] The 2,136 page book was worked on for a span of five years before being published in 1996. Three and a half years were dedicated to intense research in Amsterdam, Paris, London and Vienna. [12] It contains no index or page numbers and is anti-chronological. [19] This was to encourage readers to approach the book without constraints, but rather surprise and discovery. Tulip fields and a Dutch poem were incorporated into the edges of the book, viewable depending on the direction in which each page is flipped. It is an unusually thick book measuring 22.5 x 17 x 11 cm. It started with Boom being asked to 'look for the unusual'. [1] It was created with the editorial of art historian Johan Pijnappel. Initially there had been consideration in publishing the content as a CD-ROM, but a book proved to be a more timeless and opportunistic option. The book's entirely white cover reveals a title as it dirties with use over time. An alternate version comes in black. Transparent adhesive had been typographically applied to collect dust and fingerprints. Creating a book with a blank cover alarmed publishers at the time but their unease presumably disappeared after the book's release, as it elevated Boom to international design stardom. The anniversary book was one of her biggest and communicated a narrative on the history of that company. It was designed to be distributed worldwide, yet Boom has calculated that it will take five hundred years for the book to spread to all the corners of the globe. Four thousand copies were printed in English and five hundred in Chinese. [20] It has been described as an international icon of Dutch design. It is part of the permanent collection of MoMA. [3]

Weaving as Metaphor, Sheila Hicks

Boom was commissioned to create a book on the American textile and fiber artist Sheila Hicks to accompany a solo exhibition on Hicks' work at Bard Graduate Center entitled "Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor." [21] [22] The book was published in 2006 and was awarded a gold medal as 'The Most Beautiful Book in the World' at the Leipzig Book Fair. [22] [23] This book again troubled publishers for its blank cover, warning that an image is needed or it would not sell. Boom rejected a request to have the artists work on the cover stating that Hicks is an interesting artist who deserves a bigger audience, therefore is in need of a more abstract cover. [1] The book was designed with a simple layout: text on the left, image centred on the right. Of particular note on this book are the edges, which are jagged and frayed. A circular hacksaw was introduced into the production process to create these edges, which mimicked the selvedges of Hick's textile work. [12] It measures at 22 x 15.5 x 5.6 cm and is part of the permanent collection at MoMA. [24]

N°5 Culture Chanel

For Chanel's 2013 exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Boom created a book filled with solid white, textural pages. The 300 page book was printed devoid of ink, instead embossed with text and image creating a semi-invisible narrative for Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. [14] The book structure is housed in a black box. The concept behind the book was inspired by the nature of perfume—it is best understood in an olfactive, not visual, manner—and relies on lesser dominant senses to convey the essence of the Chanel N ͦ5 fragrance. Its content came from the world of Mlle. It won the Dutch Design Awards in 2013 and is part of the permanent collection at MoMA.

Irma Boom: The Architecture of the Book

Featuring an overview of Boom's work are two 800 page identical copies of extremely contrast in size, published in 2010. The Boom book comes in a miniature (41.4 x 54.0mm, 55g) and an XXL edition (345 x 455mm, 7.5 kg). They both complement each other in that the larger version reveals hidden touches that cannot be seen in the minuscule. The books have coloured edges and are soft-cover bound with faux leather. Both include a specimen of the Chanel N ͦ5 book, with blind embossing. Other finishings include hot foil. The XXL is available in a limited edition of 150 numbered and signed copies. The miniature became a huge print success. Despite its size, it reads well. Boom had often dreamed of publishing at such a scale but the idea had as per usual been too unconventional and alarming to publishers. Her miniature is simply a model of her design process. She works builds books in small scale before evolving their size. [25] It is part of the permanent collection at MoMA.

Commissions & clients

Boom's clients include the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Inside Outside, The Museum of Modern Art New York, Prince Claus Fund, Fondazione Prada, Maserati, OMA/Rem Koolhaas, Yale University Press (London)/Bard Graduate Center (New York), Serpentine Gallery, Wiel Arets, Chanel, Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, Museum Boijmans, Zumtobel, Ferrari, Vitra International, NAi Publishers, United Nations, Koninklijke Tichelaar, Makkum, Aga Khan Foundation and Camper.

Boom is very selective of her projects, and collaborations. She is particular in acting roles while taking on projects:

I never talk about clients, by the way. I have 'commissioners'. I think with a client, the designer works for them. So instead I have commissioners I work with. The commissioner is on an equal level as the designer. Not like, 'I'm paying you—you do this for me.' To you, the 'commissioner' feels like we're talking about an artist, but in the Netherlands, a commissioner is someone you—I say—work with.

She maintains that books are a collaborative effort, requiring trust and freedom between the commissioner and the designer. [26]

Collections

Select awards & honors

Boom has over 50 awards and honors and nominations received between 1989 and the present.


Quotes

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rijksmuseum</span> National museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Concertgebouw.

<i>De Stijl</i> Dutch art movement founded 1917

De Stijl, incorporating the ideas of Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden, consisting of artists and architects. The term De Stijl is also used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 created in the Netherlands. Proponents of De Stijl advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour. They simplified visual compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white and primary colors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam</span> Art museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Zuzana Licko is a Slovak-born American type designer and visual artist known for co-founding Emigre Fonts, a digital type foundry in Berkeley, CA. She has designed and produced numerous digital typefaces including the popular Mrs Eaves, Modula, Filosofia, and Matrix. As a corresponding interest she also creates ceramic sculptures and jacquard weavings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheila Hicks</span> American artist

Sheila Hicks is an American artist. She is known for her innovative and experimental weavings and sculptural textile art that incorporate distinctive colors, natural materials, and personal narratives.

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville is an American graphic designer, artist and educator whose work reflects her belief in the importance of feminist principles and user participation in graphic design. In 1990 she became the director of the Yale University Graduate Program in Graphic Design and the first woman to receive tenure at the Yale University School of Art. In 2010 she was named the Caroline M. Street Professor of Graphic Design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Lupton</span> American graphic designer

Ellen Lupton is a graphic designer, curator, writer, critic, and educator. Known for her love of typography, Lupton is the Betty Cooke and William O. Steinmetz Design Chair at Maryland Institute College of Art. Previously she was the Senior Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City and was named Curator Emerita after 30 years of service. She is the founding director of the Graphic Design M.F.A. degree program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where she also serves as director of the Center for Design Thinking. She has written numerous books on graphic design for a variety of audiences. She has contributed to several publications, including Print, Eye, I.D., Metropolis, and The New York Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marian Bantjes</span> Canadian graphic designer

Marian Bantjes is a Canadian designer, artist, illustrator, typographer and writer. Describing her work as graphic art, Marian Bantjes is known for her custom lettering, intricate patterning and decorative style. Inspired by illuminated manuscripts, Islamic calligraphy, Baroque ornamentation, Marian Bantjes creates detailed work, often combining the forms of her disparate influences.

Hester van Eeghen was a Dutch designer of leather bags, wallets and accessories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Fili</span> American graphic designer

Louise Fili, born on April 12, 1951, is an American graphic designer renowned for her adept use of typography and commitment to quality design. Her artistic inspiration derives from her passion for Italy, Modernism, and European Art Deco styles. Acknowledged as a trailblazer in the postmodern revival of historical styles in book jacket design, Fili seamlessly blends historic typography with contemporary colors and compositions. Commencing her career in the publishing industry, Fili gained prominence for her robust typographic approach, crafting nearly 2,000 book jackets during her tenure with Random House. Upon establishing her own design studio, she has directed her focus towards restaurant identity, food-related logos, and packaging.

Petra Blaisse is a British-born Dutch designer. Her work is an intersection of the professions of architecture, interior architecture, landscape architecture, textile design, and exhibition design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Schouwenberg</span>

Louise Schouwenberg studied psychology at the Radboud University Nijmegen, sculpture at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. She worked as a visual artist from 1985–2003. Since then her primary focus has been on art and design theory. Schouwenberg is head of the Masters programme Contextual Design at Design Academy Eindhoven, and mentor of the Masters programme Inside, Interior Architecture, of the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hella Jongerius</span> Dutch industrial designer (born 1963)

Hella Jongerius is a Dutch industrial designer.

Karel Martens is a Dutch freelance graphic designer, specialized in typography

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marjan van Aubel</span> Dutch artist and designer (born 1985)

Marjan van Aubel is a Dutch solar designer based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Letterform Archive is a non-profit museum and special collections library in San Francisco, California dedicated to collecting materials on the history of lettering, typography, printing, and graphic design. It is curated by graphic designer Rob Saunders, who founded the museum with his private collection of "books, periodicals, maquettes, posters, and other ephemera" in 2014. The museum opened in February 2015 with 15,000 items. It moved to a larger space in 2020. Guests can visit the gallery exhibition during regular open hours, or schedule tours or research visits by appointment.

Claudy Jongstra is a Dutch artist and textile designer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hansje van Halem</span> Dutch graphic designer and type designer (born 1978)

Hansje van Halem is a Dutch graphic designer and type designer. Her work is typified by geometric, repetitive, sometimes almost psychedelic patterns. She works at the intersection of text, illustration, pattern, colour, texture, distortions, interruptions, variations, symmetry, systematic approach and irregularities. Van Halem combines the more open rules of patterns with the tighter ruleset of typography and explores the boundaries of type design. She uses the viewer’s distance to the work to move at the edge of legibility and non-legibility. In her understanding background and type should become one layer. Important to her are the process itself, “playing” around and working with trial and error. Her commissions rather revolve around the creation of identities, whole covers and patterns than individual fonts.

Piet Gerards is a Dutch graphic designer and publisher.

Steven Aalders is an abstract artist, known for his minimal geometric oil paintings.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Miltenburg, Anne (Summer 2014). "Reputations: Irma Boom". Eye . Vol. 22, no. 88. Archived from the original on 30 November 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Game Changers: Irma Boom". Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum . 10 November 2015. Archived from the original on 2 December 2023. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 "Faculty: Irma Boom, Graphic Designer". Yale School of Art . Archived from the original on 30 September 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  4. 1 2 "Gutenberg Prize - The previous winners of the Prize - 1999 - 2007". City of Leipzig . Archived from the original on 21 April 2017. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  5. 1 2 "Artists: Irma Boom". Museum of Modern Art . Archived from the original on 26 May 2024. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  6. Breuer, Gerda (2012). Women In Graphic Design: 1890–2012. Berlin: Jovis Verlag. pp. 226–231. ISBN   9783868591538. OCLC   983808417.
  7. "Irma Boom". Design Museum . Archived from the original on 24 January 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  8. Barone, Joshua (16 January 2017). "Irma Boom's Library, Where Pure Experimentalism Is on the Shelf" . The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Reinventing the Smell of a Book". The International Herald Tribune. March 19, 2007 via LexisNexis Academic.
  10. Williams, Eliza (1 December 2011). "Boom and her books" . Creative Review . ISSN   0262-1037. ProQuest   914945491. Archived from the original on 20 February 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  11. Farrelly, Liz (Summer 1994). "Clarity and contradiction". Eye . Vol. 4, no. 13. Archived from the original on 8 June 2023. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  12. 1 2 3 Antonelli, Paola (2010). "Irma Boom". In Butler, Cornelia; Schwartz, Alexandra (eds.). Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art. pp. 400–403. ISBN   9780870707711. OCLC   501397424.
  13. "Lectures, Talks, Reading: Irma Boom". Walker Art Center . March 2010. Archived from the original on 27 May 2024. Retrieved 2 May 2013.
  14. 1 2 3 "Irma Bloom tribute to Coco Chanel". www.artbabble.org.[ permanent dead link ]
  15. Lamster, Mark (11 November 2010). "Boom Goes Pop". Design Observer . Archived from the original on 21 January 2012. Retrieved 15 November 2011.
  16. Rawsthorn, Alice (8 August 2010). "A Small Book on a Big Career" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on 17 September 2012. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  17. Nuttall, Sarah, ed. (2006). Beautiful/Ugly: African and Diaspora Aesthetics. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. p. 29. ISBN   0822339072. OCLC   85689188 . Retrieved 15 November 2011 via Google Books.
  18. "Profile - Irma Boom". Submarine Channel. Archived from the original on 28 February 2024. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  19. Kuitenbrouwer, Carel (Spring 1997). "A monument made of money". Eye . Vol. 6, no. 24. Archived from the original on 5 October 2023. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  20. "Irma Boom, Thinkbook". Design History Mashup. 15 November 2008. Archived from the original on 21 November 2023. Retrieved 2 May 2013.
  21. "Exhibitions: Sheila Hicks - Weaving as Metaphor". Bard Graduate Center. 2006. Archived from the original on 17 May 2024. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  22. 1 2 "Sheila Hicks - Weaving as Metaphor". Yale University Press . Archived from the original on 1 June 2023. Retrieved 26 May 2024. ...designed by Irma Boom and named 'the most beautiful book in the world' at the 2007 Leipzig Book Fair...
  23. 1 2 Rawsthorn, Alice (18 March 2007). "Reinventing the look (even smell) of a book" . The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on 27 May 2024. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  24. "Irma Boom - Sheila Hicks, Weaving as Metaphor - 2006". Museum of Modern Art . Archived from the original on 27 November 2022. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  25. 1 2 "Irma Boom: The Architecture of the Book". Special Collections. University of Amsterdam. 19 September 2013. Archived from the original on 3 February 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  26. Pritchard, Owen (20 April 2016). "'I go from analogue, to digital, then back to analogue' - Irma Boom on creating unique books". It's Nice That. Photography by Mirka Laura Severa. Archived from the original on 25 September 2023. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  27. "Irma Boom, l'architecture du livre - Parole au graphisme" [Irma Boom, the architecture of the book]. Centre Pompidou (in French). 5 December 2013. Archived from the original on 27 May 2024. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  28. "Winner". Rotterdam designprijs. 1997.[ dead link ]
  29. "50 Books | 50 Covers of 2016 competition results". American Institute of Graphic Arts . 13 July 2017. Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  30. Silverberg, Michael (22 July 2011). "Interview with Irma Boom". Print Magazine . Archived from the original on 28 June 2022. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
  31. 1 2 Nagler, Erich (29 February 2008). "Irma Boom's Visual Testing Ground". Metropolis . Archived from the original on 6 December 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2016.

Sources

Further reading