Irma Boom
Encyclopedia
Irma Boom is an Amsterdam-based graphic designer
who specializes in book making. With her use of unfamiliar formats, materials, colors, structures, and typography. Boom turns books into a visual and haptic experience. Boom has established an international reputation, according to an interview in April of 2001. To her, books are seen as objects that communicate ideas and stories and speak to all human senses.
, Gelderland
. She studied graphic design at the AKI Art Academy in Enschede
. After graduating, she worked for five years at the Dutch Government Publishing and Printing Office in The Hague. In 1991 she founded Irma Boom Office, which works nationally and internationally in both the cultural and commercial sectors. Some of her clients include the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, InsiKode Outside, Museum, Boijmans Van Beuningen, Zumtobel, Ferrari, Vitra International, N Ai Publishers, and Camper.
Since 1992 Boom has been a critic at Yale University in the US, has given lectures and workshops worldwide. She has been the recipient of many awards for her book designs and was the youngest-ever laureate to receive the prestigious Gutenberg prize for her complete oeuvre.
Her design for ‘Weaving as Metaphor’ by American artist Sheila Hicks was awarded 'The Most Beautiful Book in the World’ at the Leipzig Book Fair. Her books have been shown at numerous international exhibitions and are also represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
“I’m mad about books, but I hate handmade books. They have to be industrially made. A book which has been made by hand showing traces of handicraft to me is hideous, really disgusting. Books are made to spread information. They’re reproductions so they should be distributed around the world in multiples. I’m trying to follow my own path and stick to it. I think the internet has changed books as a phenomenon. Making a book has in fact become a status symbol. It’s a very slow and still medium. The types of boos I make tend to have an object-like quality. I think that’s important both to me and to the book’s existence. A really good book has permanent quality, I think. I hope. Whether they’re technical mistakes or getting it slightly wrong it’s all about making mistakes. Perhaps each book I make is a mistake I want to correct with the next book. That’s the element to it. If making these dummies (meaning sketches) looks like donkey work, that’s because it is. I make them primarily to help me see the structures of the book. I have to say that these tiny books tend to be much more fun than the actual books.”
In False Flat: Why Dutch Design Is So Good, first published in 2004 and recently issued in paperback, Aaron Betsky, former director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, begins his discus- sion of Dutch design with him in his office in Rotterdam looking out of the window and musing on the way in which the scene he surveys ‘teaches us how we can make a good society by design. The book itself is put together in a manner that gives a strong sense of spatial organization and flu- idity may go some way to confirming Betsky’s cen- tral thesis. Generously illustrated and idiosyncratically laid out, Irma Boom’s design lends a logic to the text that is both dynamic and contained. The paperback edition is a satisfying object, somehow more tactile and yielding than the hardback, and between Betsky’s essays and Eeuwens’ collations of images of archi- tecture, products and graphic design, the reader is left with a lasting impression of the imagination and eclecticism of contemporary design in Holland.
Boom designed a book titled "Beautiful Ugly" by Sarah Nuttall. Nuttall states "The book was designed in Amsterdam by Irma Boom, and I thank her for her extraordinary eye and prodigious talent for making books beautiful." The cover to this book was an olive-green color with no pictures or text. It was simple yet elegant.
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
who specializes in book making. With her use of unfamiliar formats, materials, colors, structures, and typography. Boom turns books into a visual and haptic experience. Boom has established an international reputation, according to an interview in April of 2001. To her, books are seen as objects that communicate ideas and stories and speak to all human senses.
Biography
Irma Boom was born on December 15, 1960 in LochemLochem
Lochem is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands. it is also the hebrew word for soldier or warrior. On 1 January 2005, the municipality merged with the municipality of Gorssel.- Population centres :Small hamlets are printed in italics....
, Gelderland
Gelderland
Gelderland is the largest province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. The capital city is Arnhem. The two other major cities, Nijmegen and Apeldoorn have more inhabitants. Other major regional centers in Gelderland are Ede, Doetinchem, Zutphen, Tiel, Wijchen,...
. She studied graphic design at the AKI Art Academy in Enschede
Enschede
Enschede , also known as Eanske in the local dialect of Twents, is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Overijssel and in the Twente region...
. After graduating, she worked for five years at the Dutch Government Publishing and Printing Office in The Hague. In 1991 she founded Irma Boom Office, which works nationally and internationally in both the cultural and commercial sectors. Some of her clients include the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, InsiKode Outside, Museum, Boijmans Van Beuningen, Zumtobel, Ferrari, Vitra International, N Ai Publishers, and Camper.
Since 1992 Boom has been a critic at Yale University in the US, has given lectures and workshops worldwide. She has been the recipient of many awards for her book designs and was the youngest-ever laureate to receive the prestigious Gutenberg prize for her complete oeuvre.
The Early Years
For five years Boom has worked on the 2136 page SHV Think Book as editor and designer Utrecht. Research for this book took place in cities like Amsterdam, Paris, London, and Vienna. This anniversary book was one of her biggest works and showed a specific view on the history of her company. It was designed to be distributed around the world. However, it's pace of distribution is very slow. Boom has calculated that it will take five hundred years to spread to all the places in the world. Four thousand copies were printed in English and five hundred in Chinese.Her design for ‘Weaving as Metaphor’ by American artist Sheila Hicks was awarded 'The Most Beautiful Book in the World’ at the Leipzig Book Fair. Her books have been shown at numerous international exhibitions and are also represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Boom, the fat book
This Dutch designer has introduced the idea of a "fat book." When Boom was asked what would make her create a book that was two inches tall and half as thick, she replied: “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.” The book contains 704 pages and 450 images. She titles the book "Irma Boom: Biography in Books." The New York Times wrote an article called "A Small Book in a Big Career," published on August 8th, 2010, based on Irma Boom's . This book only ran for about two months at the University of Amsterdam Library. It was bound in a bright red cover with the word "BOOM" printed on the front in clumsy white letters.Late Years
Boom, at age 49, has designed most of her books the way she has wanted. A book designer normally works with texts and images selected by editors and art directors. However, Boom prefers combining all three roles by deciding on the book's structure and choosing the themes and visual material on her own. When working on a book, she obsesses over every element. This includes not only how the book will look, but how it will feel and smell and invents ingenious ways of achieving her desired affects. This is what makes her such a great designer.“I’m mad about books, but I hate handmade books. They have to be industrially made. A book which has been made by hand showing traces of handicraft to me is hideous, really disgusting. Books are made to spread information. They’re reproductions so they should be distributed around the world in multiples. I’m trying to follow my own path and stick to it. I think the internet has changed books as a phenomenon. Making a book has in fact become a status symbol. It’s a very slow and still medium. The types of boos I make tend to have an object-like quality. I think that’s important both to me and to the book’s existence. A really good book has permanent quality, I think. I hope. Whether they’re technical mistakes or getting it slightly wrong it’s all about making mistakes. Perhaps each book I make is a mistake I want to correct with the next book. That’s the element to it. If making these dummies (meaning sketches) looks like donkey work, that’s because it is. I make them primarily to help me see the structures of the book. I have to say that these tiny books tend to be much more fun than the actual books.”
In False Flat: Why Dutch Design Is So Good, first published in 2004 and recently issued in paperback, Aaron Betsky, former director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, begins his discus- sion of Dutch design with him in his office in Rotterdam looking out of the window and musing on the way in which the scene he surveys ‘teaches us how we can make a good society by design. The book itself is put together in a manner that gives a strong sense of spatial organization and flu- idity may go some way to confirming Betsky’s cen- tral thesis. Generously illustrated and idiosyncratically laid out, Irma Boom’s design lends a logic to the text that is both dynamic and contained. The paperback edition is a satisfying object, somehow more tactile and yielding than the hardback, and between Betsky’s essays and Eeuwens’ collations of images of archi- tecture, products and graphic design, the reader is left with a lasting impression of the imagination and eclecticism of contemporary design in Holland.
Boom designed a book titled "Beautiful Ugly" by Sarah Nuttall. Nuttall states "The book was designed in Amsterdam by Irma Boom, and I thank her for her extraordinary eye and prodigious talent for making books beautiful." The cover to this book was an olive-green color with no pictures or text. It was simple yet elegant.