{"id":54029,"date":"2025-10-03T20:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T20:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/54029\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T20:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T20:56:11","slug":"an-interview-with-dutch-graphic-designerdesigner-irma-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/54029\/","title":{"rendered":"An interview with Dutch graphic designerdesigner Irma Boom"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems fitting that Irma Boom<\/a> \u2013 a woman who has done more than perhaps any other living person to alert the world to the possibilities of the book as a desirable, cutting-edge medium for the transmission of knowledge, and whose very surname means \u2018tree\u2019 in her native Dutch \u2013 should seek to communicate via print, even in person.<\/p>\n

\u2018Every year, it grows by three per cent, whether it\u2019s produced or not,\u2019 she says, laying out three tiny volumes of varying dimensions, each no bigger than a matchbox, on the kitchen table of her premises in Amsterdam<\/a>\u2019s Oud-Zuid district. These are successive editions of her signature \u2018little red book\u2019, cataloguing her life\u2019s work in reverse chronological order with the designer\u2019s \u2018comments here and there\u2019. The covers are emblazoned with BOOM in Flintstonian capitals. \u2018It works super well in English, too,\u2019 she says of her surname. \u2018Because it\u2019s also an explosion.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

A catalogue for the 2000 \u2018Inside Outside\u2019 show at Storefront in New York, Movements can be read from back to front (interior designs) and front to back (outdoor projects). Every page has holes, connecting both \u2018in and \u2018out<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

Inside are the greatest hits of the so-called \u2018Queen of Books\u2019, from her Viktor & Rolf tome, a sort of anti-coffee table volume consisting entirely of dust jackets printed with imagery in inverted colours (if you want straightforward representations of their clothes, she reasons, you can Google<\/a> them), to her Eileen Gray<\/a> monograph published in conjunction with a Bard Graduate Center Gallery exhibition on the designer. Its edges resemble Gray\u2019s geometric rugs; the texts and images inside are arranged \u2018like architecture\u2019.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These conceptually single-minded yet strangely flamboyant volumes change hands for great sums on the resale market. She has heard that the ink-free book she made in honour of Chanel<\/a> No. 5, which, at Boom\u2019s behest, originally retailed for $100, can fetch $18,000 secondhand. She disapproves. \u2018That is not the idea. What I like about making books is that it is a democratic multiple. If you compare it to architecture, it\u2019s more social housing than villas.\u2019<\/p>\n

All being well, the red catalogue will reach 219.2cm in length by the time Boom, now 65, turns 100. Who can say how many new and fabulous projects will throng its pages by then? Certainly not Boom, who says she accepts commissions \u2018on intuition\u2019 without crunching the numbers or consulting her schedule.<\/p>\n

She has two full-time assistants, reads non-fiction voraciously, even in her \u2018free\u2019 time, and says of her intensive working process, \u2018the creation is solitary, the production is a collaboration\u2019.<\/p>\n

Boom remains the youngest ever recipient of the Gutenberg Prize for persons and institutions that have made outstanding contributions to the art of the book. Like her friend Rem Koolhaas<\/a> \u2013 with whom she designed \u2018Elements of Architecture<\/a>\u2019, an exhibition and encyclopaedic Taschen-published opus exploring the fundamental components of buildings for the 2014 Venice<\/a> Biennale \u2013 she seems to straddle the boundary between individual and institution. It was her idea to clad Cuyperspassage, the Benthem Crouwel-designed bicycle and pedestrian tunnel at Amsterdam\u2019s Centraal Station, with 80,000 hand-painted Delft blue tiles that took five years to produce, and she oversees all of the publications by the Rijksmuseum, whose logo she re-engineered to controversial effect.<\/p>\n

Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

James Jennifer Georgina, published by Erasmus in 2010 and also known as The Yellow Book, is the autobiography of the Butler family, told in three sections, 210 postcards, 21 conversations and 1,200 pages<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

Irma Elizabeth Francisca Maria Boom was born in 1960 in Lochem in Gelderland, the \u2018spoiled\u2019 youngest of nine children, and she continues to maintain a superstitious attachment to the number three and its multiples, which often feature in her work and guide her decision-making. She did not wear hand-me-downs, she notes, \u2018but my sisters and I were always dressed the same, as if we were twins of different sizes\u2019. Lewis Carroll\u2019s Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland, with its ever-curious heroine who grows in stature and confidence, was the formative book of her childhood. \u2018It made such a big impression on me. I don\u2019t know how many times I read it \u2013 maybe a hundred,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

Aspiring to be a painter, she studied at the AKI Academy of Art & Design in nearby Enschede, where the artist and typographer Abe Kuipers would visit every Wednesday with two suitcases full of notable books: atlases, dictionaries, volumes of poetry. On one occasion, he rhapsodised about Turkish Delight and Horrible Tango, novels by Dutch author Jan Wolkers with compellingly lurid cover typography by Jan Vermeulen that captured the intrigue within. \u2018I knew immediately: this is what I want. To create something meaningful,\u2019 Boom once told Dutch newspaper Het Parool. She never touched a paintbrush again.<\/p>\n

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\"A\n<\/p>\n

In 1987, Boom was commissioned to design the official annual Dutch postage stamp books. Her controversial volumes polarised readers, bringing her both hate mail and fan letters<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"A\n<\/p>\n

Dutch postage stamps book<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

Dutch postage stamps book<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

After art school, Boom went to The Hague to work in the design department of the government\u2019s publishing and printing office, where she fell for a handsome colleague, only to discover that he was Jan Vermeulen\u2019s son, Julius. The pair were inseparable until Julius\u2019 death from cancer in early 2024, and his portrait, by their longtime friend, photographer Rineke Dijkstra, dominates Boom\u2019s white-walled studio. \u2018He was my most important critic,\u2019 she notes. \u2018He always pushed me to my limits and would say, \u201cThat\u2019s good, but can it be better?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

She established Irma Boom Office in 1991, and her first major commission came from SHV Holdings, a privately owned Dutch multinational company whose request for a corporate history was an unlikely catalyst for the aesthetic riot that followed. \u2018They don\u2019t create, they only trade. There\u2019s nothing sexy about it,\u2019 she says of her erstwhile commissioner\u2019s business activities. \u2018But we turned it into something because they gave us a lot of freedom and trust.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\"a\n<\/p>\n

SHV Think Book 1996-1896, a commission from SHV Holdings<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"a\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

A 2,136-page medley of internal memos and contracts pertaining to liquid gas, printed on Bible paper and bound in shocking pink, with interstitial pages posing quasi-philosophical questions (\u2018Has change produced progress?\u2019), this kaleidoscopic \u2018think book\u2019 remains, for many, Boom\u2019s defining masterpiece. To see it, I go to the Special Collections unit of the University of Amsterdam, where print curator Mathieu Lommen removes it from its protective box and fans the fore-edge this way and that to reveal, variously, fields of tulips and hidden lines of poetry. \u2018Her books are never run of the mill,\u2019 he observes.<\/p>\n

Boom\u2019s refusal to see limitations in print\u2019s material constraints has arguably protected her from the vicissitudes of less stable technologies. Had she embraced the SHV commission using the paraphernalia \u2018of the day\u2019 \u2013 a CD-ROM, say \u2013 it would have become obsolete within the five years of the think book\u2019s genesis, she comments. Nevertheless, its numberless pages are inspired by the experience of \u2018reading\u2019 on the internet. \u2018You really scroll through the book, and you come across things you weren\u2019t looking for.\u2019<\/p>\n

The sheer unreasonableness of the project seems to have set the tone for all the relationships that followed. While traditional publishers scrimp on typesetting and license their cover art from Getty, Boom is busy commissioning bespoke paper, articulating spines and experimenting with obscure binding methods to set readers on a multisensory adventure. Don\u2019t her patrons dread the spiralling costs, I ask. \u2018If something is lousy, then no one wants to execute it,\u2019 she replies. \u2018But I think if you have a good idea, if you come with a good argument, then things work. And anything is possible.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\"Monochromatic\n<\/p>\n

Inspired by the fact that fragrance is invisible, No. 5 Culture Chanel, 2013, uses no ink. Each of its 300 crisp white pages is blind embossed with a drawing or quotation. It is the same size as the perfume\u2019s bottle<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Monochromatic\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

Adjoining Boom\u2019s home, Irma Boom Office shares a front door with Julius Vermeulen\u2019s f\u00eated Eenwerk art gallery in a purpose-built glass, steel and basalt interruption to the red-brick townhouses on an arterial road in this manicured part of Amsterdam. It was designed by Barend Koolhaas (Rem\u2019s nephew) and contains both a rooftop greenhouse and a glass garage in which a grey Porsche<\/a> is charging for an imminent trip to Switzerland<\/a>. Since Vermeulen\u2019s death, Boom has taken over the running of the gallery, which has just played host to a solo exhibition of works by the late minimalist artist Corrie de Boer.<\/p>\n

A dummy of the latest book with her long-term collaborator, the artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, has just arrived from the printer and she fingers it with suspicion or reverence (it\u2019s hard to tell which). Next year, she will reissue her red book in Japan<\/a>, with a \u2018Book Activist\u2019 gloss, inspired by her admiration for the writer and Black Panther Angela Davis. To this end, she has just finished writing a text on Mao Zedong\u2019s Little Red Book, although she claims not to have pondered this notorious Chinese antecedent to her BOOM book the first time around. Beyond that, Boom is looking forward to returning to Italy, where, in 2018, she began a design residency at the American Academy in Rome, and a course of study she had to abandon when Vermeulen became ill.<\/p>\n

While in Rome<\/a>, Boom sought access to the Vatican Apostolic Library, which is accessible only to those with \u2018acceptable qualifications\u2019. Despite her storied credentials in academia (Boom is an academy fellow at the Yale School of Art), she was subject to rigorous vetting before being granted ten of the coveted day passes. Inside, Boom found many pre-1501 early books, or incunabula, among the fragile bibliographic treasures. She describes her time there in terms of the proverbial candy store. \u2018I had too many books open, books everywhere and I was so excited that I was running back and forward between the manoscritti and the stampati on the wooden floor. Can you imagine\u2026 in these clogs?\u2019 She whips off her wooden-heeled garden centre mule and taps it on the table in demonstration.<\/p>\n

At the Vatican Apostolic Library, \u2018I was running back and forward between the manoscritti and the stampati. Can you imagine… in these clogs?\u2019<\/p>\n

Irma Boom<\/p>\n

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\"Shiny\n<\/p>\n

Commissioned by Renault in 2016, this limited-edition book was printed on wafer thin, glossy aluminium paper, resembling the body of a car. The company\u2019s logo, designed by Victor Vasarely, is printed on a single aluminium plate<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Shiny\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

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\"Book\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Courtesy Irma Boom)<\/p>\n

Apparently some studious priests complained about the unholy din, and Boom was summoned to an audience with Cardinal Jos\u00e9 Tolentino de Mendon\u00e7a, who was, at the time, the librarian and archivist of the Holy Roman Church. Acquaintances were terrified on her behalf, she says. But the cardinal was intrigued and, instead of reprimanding her, invited her to stage an exhibition, \u2018Book! Boom! The Vatican Apostolic Library meets Irma Boom<\/a>\u2019, for which there was a prosecco-soused opening.<\/p>\n

It was here in the Vatican Library, amid some of the oldest printed matter on earth, that Boom says she became aware of something she had always known, albeit unconsciously. \u2018What I realised is that you make books not for the past or for the present\u2026 but for the future.\u2019<\/p>\n

This article appears in the October 2025 issue of Wallpaper*<\/a>, available in print and on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It seems fitting that Irma Boom \u2013 a woman who has done more than perhaps any other living…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[412,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-54029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}