Definitions of a Book

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// DEFINITIONS OF A BOOK //

A book within a book based on the definition what a book is or should be by Irma Boom

// CONCEPT //

During the 4th Semester we had the task to create a book about the work of one bookdesigner.

I chose the amazing Irma Boom. At first a tough choice since she designed 265 books until 2014 and most of them are hard to get and already collector’s items. It was also almost impossible to get high quality pictures of the books.

During my research I found a talk of Irma Boom in which she read a list of words which represent her thoughts about books. She read those 288 completely associative words in alphabetical order for over 10 minutes. It was impressive - the range of images you get in your head when you listen to them. So I decided that’s something I can, no I want to work with. Since those words are free for interpretation and everyone associates something different, I decided to create a book within a book. The big book contains Irma Booms introduction from the talk and on every following page one of the 288 words. As counterpart the small book consists only of pictures - so it is possible to flip through the pages of the big and the small book seperately. The reader is able to choose his/her personal associative combination of word and picture. So this book is more than a book, it becomes an object free for your personal interpretation of those words.