designedit.

Format for books: Hyphen Press - International Project Space

Edited & typeset by Robin Kinross

Text set in Ludwig Pro designed by Fred Smeijers

Printed with vegetable-oil-based inks on 90g Cyclus Offset in 3000 copies.

This exhibition focuses on a fundamental factor in making and publishing books: format. What size should the pages of a book be given? The question raises all the considerations of publishing. Who will read this work? And where? How will it be made? With what paper? By which printer? On which press? How does it connect to the other books we publish? What is the happiest size for these pictures and this text?

Hyphen Press was started in 1980 to make a new edition of Norman Potter’s book What is a designer?. The intimate interconnection of writing, editing, and design, in the production of that book proved to be a model for what followed…

20 march - 6 april 2010

GRAPHIC #11 Ideas of Design Exhibition - Propaganda Press 2009 /

Designed by Na Kim

This issue is to have invited and recreated 12 noteworthy exhibitions which were held in various regions on the paper of our magazine. These exhibitions present a design methodology that makes it possible for design to convert itself into the various media, such as graphic design, architect, public space, online space, publishing, etc. and in some meanings, these deserve to be valued as those approaching the center of speculative wave of contemporary design.

Beauty and the Book: 60 Years of the Most Beautiful Swiss Books - Verlag Niggli AG 2004 /

Designed by Julia Born

The Swiss Federal Office of Culture is using the 60th anniversary of the competition ‘The most beautiful Swiss books’ not only to light 60 candles on the birthday cake, but to organise a special exhibition and to issue an accompanying publication highlighting all aspects of the competition in a historical retrospective. The development of Swiss book design in the highly charged field of changing aesthetic and technical requirements is depicted in 143 books. In the course of the 60 years, with an interruption between 1947 and 1949, ca. 14,000 books have been shown in the competition and a total of 1710 titles have been honoured.
A group of five experts (Jost Hochuli, François Rappo, Christina Reble, Robin Kinross and Cornel Windlin) selected exemplary works from among these titles in a two-step process. Their task was not to honour once more the most beautiful of all beautiful books, but to select meaningful and exemplary works of book design of the last 60 years by extracting highlights and key works from among all these honoured publications.” (From the introduction by Mirjam Fischer)
The designer Julia Born has created a sober, clear and almost subordinate catalogue of these books and the process of their choice.

Designing books: practice and theory - Hyphen Press 2003 /

Designed by Jost Hochuli

A vastly experienced Swiss book-designer explains his trade with plentiful illustrations of designed books. Two complementary components are added: an essay by Jost Hochuli on some dogmas of typography, and arguing for an attitude of critical openness of mind; and reproduction of books designed by Hochuli himself, with analytical captions by Robin Kinross.

Back Cover #4 - editions B42 2011 /

Designed by deValence

With contributions by: Catherine de Smet, Robin Kinross, Metahaven, Jost Hochuli, Wim Crouwel, Roland Früh, <stdin>

Back Cover #3 - editions B42 2010 /

Designed by deValence

With contributions by: Raphaël Zarka, Aurélien Froment, Richard Hollis, Jean-Yves Jouannais, Robin Kinross, Metahaven, Didier Semin, Yann Sérandour, Benjamin Thorel, Abäke, Alexandre Dimos

Counterprint - Hyphen Press 2004 /

Designed by Karel Martens

A short book that shows some of the uncommissioned printed work of Karel Martens, with an essay on ‘The world as a printing surface’ by Paul Elliman.

Printed matter / Drukwerk - Hyphen Press/

Designed by Karel Martens - 2010

Dutch typographic designer Karel Martens is one of the most influential and enduring designers alive in the Netherlands today. His body of work spans over 50 years and manages to maintain a freshness and timeless appeal. In 1996 he was awarded the Dr. H.A. Heineken Award— the top graphic design award in Holland. He is the founder of the Werkplaats Typografie, a post-graduate graphic design school in Arnhem, NL, as well as a lecturer at the Yale School of Graphic Design, and the Jan Van Eyck Academy in Maastrich, NL. Karel Martens work is often regarded as defining “dutch design” and many of the aesthetic and conceptual characteristics he employs have been widely appropriated by the design community in NL and abroad.