the world’s most famous book designer: Irma Boom

Interview by Anne Miltenburg with book designer Irma Boom, commissioned by Eye Magazine, published August 2014.

‘I compare my work to architecture. I don’t build villas, I build social housing. The books are industrial made and they need to be made very well. I am all for industrial production. I hate one-offs. On one book you can do anything, but if you do a print run, that is a challenge. It’s never art. Never, never, never.’

In a time where print is under assault, one would assume book designer Irma Boom (1960) is hurting. But in the competition between print and digital, only the best designed paper books survive. Books that are indistinguishable from a printed pdf disappear into the digital sphere. Consequently, Irma Boom, Queen of the Best Designed Paper Books, is thriving like never before. 

Her commissioners include Chanel, Rem Koolhaas and the Rijksmuseum. Fifty of her books are part of the collection at MoMa, and the University of Amsterdam guards her archive. She won the Gutenberg Prize, the Leipzig Book Fair gold medal, and this October she will receive the Vermeer Award (the Dutch state prize for the arts, which consists of 100,000 euros to spend on a special project in her field). 

For designers starting out today, it would be impossible to replicate Boom’s career. In part because of the digital revolution, in part due to the Dutch design ecology that provided her with critical opportunities; an ecology that has since dissolved. The Government Printing and Publishing Office, where she started her career, viewed design as a tool to elevate the masses. It offered her the space to hone her skills. After its privatization, Boom set off on her own. 

Irma Boom Office quickly took off. Paul Fentener van Vlissingen commissioned a book for the centenary of his company SHV, without budget or time restraints. It took five years, four office chairs and fifteen gained kilo’s to finish. The tome, at 2136 pages and 3.5 kilo’s, was just light enough for the oldest shareholder, aged 85, to set it on her lap and browse the pages. It propelled Boom to designer stardom, from which she has not dropped since.

Her career, spanning three decades, is a string of hard-earned successes. Boom struggles with the creative process as well as her clients. Her commitment takes on marathon-esque proportions: she reserves seven days a week, twelve hours a day for her projects.

She has no children. Her longtime partner Julius Vermeulen honors her space: she lovingly refers to him as her greatest supporter and critic. She searches for a uniquely specific editorial starting point to translate to exceptional form. With each new publication, she seems to reinvent the book. 

The downside of being the Queen of Books is the risk of overpowering your subjects. In the case of a book on graphic designer Otto Treumann, some critics and colleagues denounced Boom for creating ‘an Irma Boom’. Long-time commissioner Rem Koolhaas says: ‘There is no “service” in Irma’s industry’. It is meant as a great compliment.

Boom will celebrate the book to her last breath, but also believes it does not need a defender: the renaissance of the book will unfold either way. But even for her, not all is certain. Is the market share of quality printed books big enough to sustain a sizable community of commissioners, writers, designers and publishers? If their numbers keep decreasing, so too will Booms choice of producers and materials. 

At the top of her game, Irma Boom is only mid-career. There is much to look back on, but also an entire world left to explore. Her books on color inspired a textile line by Knoll, and her fascination with textile lead to the design of a curtain at the UN building in New York. Though she is often mistaken for a digital skeptic, but her work is heavily influenced by the rise of the internet, and she is eager to explore further. Underneath the architecture of the book, lies the architecture of information. As long as there is a story to tell, Irma Boom has the unquenchable curiosity to give shape to that story, whatever vessel it may come in.

EARLY DAYS

Can you tell us about the graphic design ‘ecology’ that existed in the Netherlands at the time you graduated design school in the eighties?

I was looking for an internship in my third year and I loved Swiss typography. So I applied at Total Design in Amsterdam, where Wim Crouwel was director at the time, but got rejected by two colleagues of his. ‘Do you always mix that many sans serif typefaces?’ they asked, and I said yes, because I thought it was an advantage. “That is not possible, we use Helvetica here.” they replied. When I told my teacher back at AKI, he told me to go to the design department of the Staatsdrukkerij en -uitgeverij, (the government-owned printing and publishing office, popularly referred to as the Staatsdrukkerij)

And I thought, my god, there is nothing more dull than a government printing office. But it turned out to be the best place for me at that moment. Me, having almost no technical skills, working in an office with 30 designers who were very used to training people, and they trained me in making books and identities.

I worked on the identity for the Ministry of Culture for which Walter Nikkels had designed a wonderful logo. After my internship at the Staatsdrukkerij I worked for three months at Studio Dumbar (an avant-garde studio at that time) and I found out that graphic design could also be fun. 

From the 1920s the PTT (the Dutch state owned Post and Telecom Company, see Eye 01) Art & Design Department had commissioned artists, architects and later designers to design its services and products. To me the whole idea of Dutch Design comes from the design policy of PTT, especially in the 1970s and 80s, where designer Ootje Oxenaar was head of the department. Oxenaar was also responsible for the design of the beautiful Guilder bank notes with the lighthouse and sunflowers. 

Working at the Staatsdrukkerij meant enormous creative freedom. Those were the heydays of art book publishing. If you made a book cover, they would encourage you to use foil or special printing techniques. The department was a ‘diving board’ for young designers who would work there for one or two years and go on to something more exciting. After my three months’ internship, I went to Dumbar and the Dutch television (NOS) design department, graduated, went back to the Staatsdrukkerij, and ended up staying for five and a half years. It was an amazing time. I learned a lot. In retrospect, it was a very productive and super creative time.

I did jobs nobody else wanted to do, like the advertisements for the publishing department, which was, thinking of it now, a smart thing to do, because I could experiment. Those assignments were completely ‘under the radar’. Nobody thought it was interesting so I could experiment. I was always working, seven days a week, as I still do, so I had an enormous production. The ‘under the radar’ work was seen by Oxenaar. He wanted to invite the designer of the crazy ads to do some of the most prestigious book jobs, the annual Dutch postage stamp books. 

Do you think that designers graduating today will have a harder time finding such space for creativity?

Places like to Government Printing and Publishing Office Staatsdrukkerij en -uitgeverij do not exist any more. At that time, they were the biggest art book publisher, everything was possible. In retrospective I think I was very lucky to work there. To be able to learn so much. Imagine, if Total Design had hired me, than I would not be sitting here! When I started working at the Government Printing Office after graduation, I was immediately a designer, not a junior or so, I became very quickly a team leader. The responsibility that I got, I thought it was the way the world worked.

At that time I was very naïve and fearless. I was not aware of an audience and certainly not a critical audience! I worked in a vacuum. It was just me working on the books, and this vacuum is no longer possible for designers starting out today. Only after the prestigious postage stamp yearbooks were published I became aware of the outside world: hate mail from postage stamp collectors and design colleagues started to come in. But there was also fan mail. 

The books polarised the design community! They were discussion objects. They won all the awards and even after lots of discussions a Best Book Award, my first one. In the jury report they mentioned ‘A brilliant failure’. Suddenly people knew who I was. I realized negative publicity has an enormous impact, more than positive publicity,; suddenly you exist. 

Those projects put you on the map.

At the Staatsdrukkerij, there were often discussions that I got all the nice jobs. So I said, ok, we swap, and then again I would hear I was lucky, that I got the nice jobs. So we swapped again. But it is what you make of an assignment and how much effort you want to put into the job to make it happen. And that is still true today. I put in seven days a week. I work intensively with the commissioner, and together I want to make the best out of it. For me making books is a collaborative effort.

 So you don't only make your own luck but also your own relationships. 

I always do what my instinct tells me, it is an intuitive decision if I take on a job. It’s all about trust. If there is no trust, it becomes really difficult. I tried once to live in New York, but when I showed my work there, people asked why it is possible that there are no images on the cover? They told me: ‘If you want to work in the States you need an image on the cover otherwise it won’t sell’. And I told them that we don't have that problem in the Netherlands. Of course at that time we had the subsidy system, which gave designers more freedom. Marketing did not rule design. So I knew that at that time it was better to work in the Netherlands. The good thing is I have now a lot of work in the US. And all great jobs! 

PROCESS AND ARGUMENT

You must have great confidence in your own abilities  to follow your instinct with such dedication?

No, no, no I still don’t see my talent. I’m just stubborn. I cannot do it in a different way. Stubbornness is an important aspect of what I do. I have a vision in my mind, I envision the book, it has to be that. One way or the other it has to happen, otherwise I don’t do it. Like with the Chanel book: I have a concept, I see it, I made it already in my head. I just need [to make it, and] the commissioner to say yes.

Yet the stubbornness must be offset by some charm that convinces your commissioners to see it too?

I have a very low-key presentation. I never discuss layout details, I propose a concept. You can discuss a concept, you cannot discuss one centimetre to the left or to the right. I don’t want to discuss those things. I bring the concept down to an abstraction, and the other person can come into that abstraction with their own ideas: it becomes a mutual thought that you can bring to a higher level. 

This is what you call ‘The Argument’

Yes, that is it exactly. That’s just how it works, I cannot do it in a different way. I ask a lot of the commissioner, they have to wait, I’m circling my pray for quite some time and then I attack the idea and I don’t let it go. 

People do know that in the end you will deliver.

Yes, absolutely, I am very reliable, I always deliver. I won’t let someone down. Maybe not in the schedule somebody else made, but I will get it done whatever it costs me. 

You have an unparalleled influence on both the design as well as the content of your books, yet I never hear you use the word ‘editorial’. 

I do use it, but it sounds pretentious, because I don’t write. I’m on the editorial board of every book. Everyone that comes in here, they know, that together we will make a book. To me it is such a natural part of making a book that I don’t talk so much about it. I’m asked for this role, it is expected. I am define the structure of a book, discuss the amount of writers , photographers. And, of course, I do all the image editing.

I compare it to architecture. I don’t build villas, I build social housing. The books are industrial made and they need to be made very well. I am all for industrial production. I hate one-off’s. One book you can do anything, but if you do a print run, that is a challenge.

The idea, like the socialist ideas, you produce in my case a book, affordable to all, which is a piece in it self. No restrictions also make it very difficult. I tell my students at Yale all the time, we have to create our own framework. And if the commissioner does not do it, then we have to do it. It has to be comprehensive, otherwise it does not work. I’m absolutely a designer, I’m not an artist, not at all. When people say the book looks like an artwork, I think it does not at all. Its never art, never, never, never. 

But the books do look like an ‘Irma Boom’. So whose book is it anyway?

I always think it is so humorous, in all matters experts are believed to actually express their expertise, but when it comes to design, everyone talks about serviceability. That is interesting. Rem Koolhaas says, in the preface to my book: ‘There is no “service” in Irma’s industry’. It’s true, I’m not a service provider. If a designer is asked, you see the designer’s ‘handwriting’. Otherwise you can ask anybody. As a designer I developed a  way of working together with the commissioner, my collaborator. 

When Otto Treumann was commissioned to design a poster, it looked like a poster designed by Otto Treumann. And when someone asks me to design a book, it will look like I designed it. That is why there are so many designers. It is about making choices and being specific. 

And Treumann chose you, despite some reservations that you might dominate the end result?

I think it was the editorial board that chose me actually. I was not even supposed to meet him, but I insisted on it, he is the subject and essential for me, and our meeting added a lot to the book. There is a photo on a spread that Treumann took, of [Willem] Sandberg and [FHK] Henrion swimming.

And people [including Robin Kinross in his Eye 42 review] criticised me for placing it in the book. ‘Who cares about two people swimming?’ But those men where so important for him, that when he was able to come so close to them to take a photo, he was euphoric. So the image was prominent in the book, because it was so important to him.  

In your experience, you put Otto Treumann in the spotlight, and yet others felt differently. What happens when a book is not well received?

During the design process I shared everything with Otto, everything, but once it came out he would not even sign it for me. I think the people around him felt it was not a good book for him. And then [all of a sudden,] everyone thought it was not a good book. The fact it was a softcover, was also not well appreciated. Except for Anthon Beeke, who said: ’You bring Otto Treumann into the 21st century.’

He was the only one to compliment me. So the book lived a quiet life for a few years, until recently it was nominated for an award somewhere, and it was all of a sudden considered a good book again. The English sales numbers rose, and suddenly it was sold out. So in retrospect, perhaps it was not such a bad book after all. For me the book is definitely one of the most important ones.

Bringing an artist into the new century is also what happened with Sheila Hicks. 

That is my best example of what a book can do for a person. 

You could argue that there are downsides to a book bearing the stamp of its designer, but also considerable upsides.

In both cases, of Sheila Hicks and Otto Treumann, it is the coming together of form and content which makes the books so good. Not only my ‘stamp’ on it. Everything comes together, all ingredients. They are books that are complete. In case of Sheila, it is her work, the texts in the book, and perhaps also my design, the printing, the binding, the edges. All executed in superb quality… It is a rare thing when it all comes together like this.

Everything came together for Sheila, but with Otto people apparently did not feel that it did.

I worked four years on the Sheila Hicks book. Made 50 models. We spend time together. We invested in each other and that is an important part of the success of the book. There was freedom, time. Ingredients lacking in the Treumann book.

If you make something, if you use paper and ink, and people and labour, it should be good, and not a compromise. (I use the term ’commissioner’ and not ‘client’ because I think of my work as being commissioned by ‘commissioners’, rather than by clients: a collaboration on equal terms in freedom and trust.

Was there a lack of trust in the Otto Treumann project?

The editorial board felt it was weird for me to want to meet Otto. I wanted to make a book together with Otto, but I was not given the chance. But of course I was stubborn and looked him up anyway. I think part of the criticism was also that it was printed badly.

For the Dutch edition the images were not colour corrected. There was no budget for lithography, and so I held on to the design for three months trying to persuade them to invest in good image corrections, because colour is so extremely important for Otto’s work, but they did not want to do it. And after three months, I gave in. But of course people tell me Iman idiot for not applying a colour correction. And of course for Otto its was an extreme disappointment. I am always in control, but here were very strong forces that pushed me.

It will be a comfort for some designers to hear that even Irma Boom sometimes cannot persuade a client to do colour corrections. 

Ha, yes, and of course you think that this will never again happen to you but sometimes it happens. Very bad memories, as you can imagine.

It must be difficult that both the success and failure of a book are immediately attached to your person?

It is not difficult, it’s part of the way of working. Success has many fathers as you know. it is a weakness of course but at the timeI felt terrible. Absolutely terrible. I never really publicly defend myself. When 010 publishers asked me to write an article for a book celebrating their work, I gave my point of view. I find The Treumann case a good story to tell every now and then, to illustrate how difficult it is to make something FOR someone. I prefer to make something WITH a person. Whether you make it with them or for them, is an important question. The Sheila Hicks book is the other side of the mirror, because that was also a long process, but the success after publishing was immediately apparent. 

The commissioner of the Sheila Hicks book Nina Stritzler-Levinehad initially fired you from the job, but ended up being your best friend.

The fact that she fired me was crucial. I thought she was joking. In Holland you talk if you are not happy in a situation, but there was no discussion. And because I ignored her remark I kept on working on the book. I told myself: I worked already for years on this project and I will finish it. In fact she helped me to be more sharp, more on the job and the result is apparent.  I really fight for what I believe in, but I also know when to give in. But our struggle on the cover took  a while. I wanted to make the cover without an image, and it took forever to get all involved to agree on it. 

Endless struggle does not sound like knowing when to give in. 

Well, I have learned. I really know when no is no, but at the same time, when the door is ever so slightly opened, I still go for it. I blame myself though. I have an idea in my head, and I should make that more visible and understandable to others. The other person cannot see it like I see it.  I can be persuasive though. I also notice when my two assistants here at the studio try to explain something to a commissioner, and don’t get an agreement on it, and when I call, it’s fine. I must have built some credits somewhere. But it’s also about the level on which you discuss the work. I don’t talk about red, yellow or green, I talk about ideas, and then we can really discuss the work truly.

When someone says they don’t like yellow, there is no way I can argue with that. When you can really discuss things with someone, you work with them. And I love that. That was also the tough pill to swallow with the Treumann book. I really felt that I had worked with him, that I had made something that was really complete, and right. That was why there was such an enormous hangover for me. It felt like a complete deception. But even though in the end the book did get credits, I do blame myself, for not having handled it well enough. 

In the end, no matter how closely you work with a person, how the collaboration is experienced might always remain speculation on both sides…

With the Sheila Hicks book, the production had been so complicated, that I did not consider going to the launch. The binding had to be done twice. But when it was finally perfect and sent to New York, Sheila and Nina  called and insisted on me coming , and said it was such a beautiful book, I had to come. And I felt like saying that it had always been that beautiful book but that they never understood it. But I blame myself, I did not explain it properly. But there is that point of trust. You can visualise everything, but at some point you just have to trust me. Trust me, and let me do my thing. But that trust is not given automatically, you have to earn it every time again and again. 

Now that you are working more and more internationally, is that trust literally stretched further and thinner?

I have always worked internationally, from the start. I’m abroad every week. I usually take the first plane in and the last plane out, so that I’m only gone a day. And we use that day for intense conversations about projects. The personal meeting is still the most valuable. You can email and call as much as you want and think you understand someone but there is nothing like personal contact. Personal contact is illuminating.

Your commissions seem to rise in status year by year. How many times can one re-invent the book? When someone at Chanel famously responds ‘c’est genial’ to your proposal, that sets the bar high…

I walked around with the idea of the Chanel book in my head for over a year. But I make books, it's a physical object, the idea has to be materialised. These days people come with a certain interest and expectation. A certain level of engagement and application. I notice that there is a very high level of expectation. It is frightening, I don’t know if I can deliver every time. I am so much driven by the content. For me the ideas come from this content. I will refuse a commission where they ask for ‘a special book’. It is paralysing. I wonder with each book I make, what it is and why we should make it in the first place. The argument that I develop for myself often becomes the argument for the book, and leads to the idea at the heart of the book. 

DIGITAL AGE

Do you see the options for printed work dwindling?

Absolutely. But what is good about it, is that there are so many books that are not worth printing. I am very happy with the e-reader and e-books – though I would like to challenge everyone who thinks that it is more sustainable to read on an e-reader than on a printed book, to consider the energy that it costs. I embrace the digital technology because it enables me to make the books I make. 

Take the SHV book, which was a landmark book in my career. It was made in the time between BC and AC (before computer and after computer ,to quote Massimo Vignelli) and you can see that it is based on the Internet: browsing through thousands of pages, without page numbers, going in and out, the endless zapping past images. Actually, we did not know this book was even going to be a book when we started.

The assignment was to ‘Look for the Unusual’, and a book was usual at that time. But the book concept and structure is unusual. At first we thought we should make a cd-room, which was very hot at the time, but we had our doubts.  The technique was so slow, we knew we would be working on the project for five years, imagine how the world would have changed by the time it is finished. So now I’m very happy we made a book, because it can still be “read”, even in 500 years. And it has aged well. The cd-rom would have been obsolete.

If you make a container, which a book is, it is not changeable, and that becomes something to reflect to. Online, you can change something at any time, it is in flux. But in a book the moment becomes frozen in time, it is like a photo or a painting. It becomes something to look back to and reflect on. 

Have people ever commissioned you to design a digital edition? Or not just the edition, but to design the entire device?

For the 1001 women book, we did it the other way around. For twelve years there was a website on 1001 fascinating women in Dutch history, but it got almost no visitors. And then we designed the book with almost the same content, and it sold out in the first week. And that is so interesting, that this can happen in 2013. It took the author Els Kloek and I three years to find a publisher.

The success was unexpected – the publisher was a happy man, and it had two more print runs – 20,000 books sold in total. But I can also imagine that sometimes it works the other way around. It might not work as a book, but it works like hell online.

Of course I am always asked to design a digital version of a book that I work on. And off course I say yes, let’s do it, why not? But first I design the printed book, so I know what it will be. It is a question of curiosity, if you don’t  have any curiosity in anything, then well, what do you do. 

But the architectural aspect of your physical books is missing in digital. 

Yes, but then you have the architecture of information. And that is interesting to investigate off course. It can inspire me in new ways. 

Should someone at MIT Media Lab wake up one morning and think: let’s invite Irma Boom for a collaboration?

No but they should, write that down! That would be really interesting. 

Do you think that you could design something that challenges digital in the way you challenge the paper book? The world of digital is governed by UX design and focus group testing and closed, unified devices…

You are holding your iPhone while you say that. Maybe Apple should call, that would be really great. The iPhone is super friendly, isn’t it? But if I look at the bookstore app, it is very old-fashioned representation of the book and the bookshelf. There could be more inventiveness.

LOOKING FORWARD

You are now mid-career, you have thirty or forty years ahead of you – I don’t imagine you retiring?

I think I will die behind my desk, cutting and gluing a book, that’s what I hope. 

People down the street will start to wonder: we haven’t seen Irma in a few years…

And I will be right there, with my head resting on the book.

If you think about the next phase in your career, could you imagine consulting with technology companies? 

That would be fascinating. I’ve been doing a lot of different things lately: textile with Knoll in New York, the identity for the Rijksmuseum and a 100-meter-long tunnel with 75.000 tiles, and a curtain for the UN headquarters in New York. They are very different projects but I work with the same intention. 

Apart from people approaching you with a question, is there also something that you would like to do, just on your own?

I’m like the shoe repairman whose own shoes are always in bad shape, but for years I have been working on a book on books. Not specifically on my own books but on books in general. We’ve now set a date for next year, but always something there is new and an interesting job comes up. But I should work on this book soon, I think it is good for me to spend time on one subject and go deeper. 

How would you sketch the future of the book?

The book has a great future. In the statement in my little red book, I talk about the Renaissance of the book. It is already happening now.

But on the other hand, I am always surprised when I’m speaking somewhere, or teaching, that students are still so much into books. You would think they would explore new techniques.  When I conclude my talks at Yale I tell the students why I make books and why I will continue doing this for the rest of my life. If you go into the Yale archives you will find books that their colleagues made in the 1950s, they are still there. But a CD-ROM with files from the 1990s, you cannot access anymore. And students are always amazed, that this is why we still make books, that this is why it is so important. Book becomes more and more valuable in the digital age. 

When you make beautiful books, you attract people who love beautiful books. when you go to a magazine launch, you find people who are crazy about magazines A conference on interaction design will attract people in love with the digital world. We each have our own self-affirming tribes. Do you get enough criticism? Is there someone who says ‘Irma, this is bullshit’, and calls you out?

I wish they did. I don’t think it happens enough. That would be really interesting. At a recent event, Massimo Vignelli said ‘The book is dead’, he challenged and teased me. So at the end of the book on my own work, I state that ‘the book is dead, long live the book’. I strongly believe in the Renaissance of the book.

Is saying ‘the book is dead’ really sharp criticism? Would it not be far more compelling a challenge for you to see if your way of working holds up in other media? 

I was shocked when Massimo repeated that sentence, I read it everywhere. But the printed book does not need any defender. It has survived 600 years or so. Information spreads depending on the inventions of that time; paintings have survived, photos, and the book is another form. For some books there is a printed future, for others there is not.

Other criticism to your work might stem from the fact that your career is held up as an example to students today, for whom it will be almost impossible to follow in your footsteps.

Why not work in print? Off course, options are shrinking. If you choose a paper from a swatch book, 90 per cent is not available anymore. But once a printer or binder disappears in the graphic industry, you can’t bring it back.  And to me this is a burning question. We still have such a great graphic industry, and I want to be able to produce my books locally.

I want to be able to control the printing and binding process. So much can happen when the book is in production. And it would be such a shame, especially if projects are paid for with community funds go to production far away in China, where somebody presses a button without even knowing what they are working on.

That ties in with the growing popular sentiment that more things should be produced locally. 

If a book is produced in China, it takes six weeks to get here. It takes two weeks to make something, and it’s on a boat for six? Give me that time, to work on the project and make it better.

So we should hope that when the sentiment for locally produced products transfers to printed publications, the producers are still there? 

Everyone says that we should go digital, but at the same time, there are more books than ever. The Sheila Hicks book for example, which I call my manifesto of the book. She is an artist from the 1970s. But she is at the Whitney Biennial in New York. Because of her amazing work she is flying high, but the book was an important push. The book is such an enormous strong piece of communicating work! If I go to Yale, and people have the Sheila Hicks book, I ask them if they are interested in weaving? they say no, it is the book.

And then I tell them to read the text, and look at the works. Interestingly enough, the publisher said that there should be an image of her work on the cover. But I told him that actually, there should not be an image on the book, because Hicks is a very interesting artist who deserves a bigger audience, and therefore we needed a more abstract cover. And it worked!