This second edition of the book I swear I use no art at all displays and dissects the first hundred books designed by Dutch graphic designer Joost Grootens over the past ten years in a systematic and neutral fashion.
In the first section, ’10 years’, Grootens uses timelines, lists and graphs to map the course of his career as a designer, the people he worked with and the places where the work took place. In ’100 books’, the designer dissects his book designs. He details the grids, formats, paper stocks, colours and typefaces, but also charts the books’ structure and composition. ’18,788 pages’ shows at actual size a selection of spreads from books designed by Grootens, including the internationally acclaimed atlases. In the text ’I swear I use no art at all’ Joost Grootens gives a personal account of making books and the ideas behind his designs.
This second edition of the book I swear I use no art at all displays and dissects the first hundred books designed by Dutch graphic designer Joost Grootens over the past ten years in a systematic and neutral fashion.
In the first section, ’10 years’, Grootens uses timelines, lists and graphs to map the course of his career as a designer, the people he worked with and the places where the work took place. In ’100 books’, the designer dissects his book designs. He details the grids, formats, paper stocks, colours and typefaces, but also charts the books’ structure and composition. ’18,788 pages’ shows at actual size a selection of spreads from books designed by Grootens, including the internationally acclaimed atlases. In the text ’I swear I use no art at all’ Joost Grootens gives a personal account of making books and the ideas behind his designs.
Highly recommended.
Eye Magazine on Twitter, 24 January 2011
Clear, elegant and subtle, it is a brilliant summary of Mr Grootens’s work. A spirited, original and dryly witty account of one designer’s thinking and way of working, while conveying Mr Grootens’s passion for his work. As well making a convincing case for the book in the digital age, ist ensures that you are unlikely to look at - or simply see - one in quite the same way again.
Alice Rawsthorn in International Herald Tribune, 31 January 2011
Yet there is also a wry humour in the way Grootens selects and sorts and catalogues, artfully artless. Quixotically, he hides all the covers, the book’s only full colour images, inside a French-folded gloss paper section.
John L. Walters in Eye Magazine, spring 2011
À se procurer de toute urgence.
Caroline Bouige in Étapes, August 2011
Tekst, beeld, structuur en kleur zijn in perfecte neutraliteit. De grafische stilte maakt duidelijk dat Grootens werk een hoogstaande standaard vormt waarin informatie per definitie tot rust komt.
Robert Jan de Kort in Architectenweb Magazine, March 2011
