WIM CROUWEL: A GRAPHIC ODYSSEY CATALOGUE
Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy [Editors]
Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy [Editors]: WIM CROUWEL: A GRAPHIC ODYSSEY CATALOGUE. London: Unit Editions, 2011. First edition. Octavo. Photo illustrated perfect bound wrappers with Publishers sticker [as issued]. 144 pp. Fully illustrated in color. Elaborate graphic design throughout. Small rubbed area to upper wrapper corner, otherwise a fine copy.
6 x 9 softcover book with 144 pages published in conjunction with the exhibition Wim Crouwel: A Graphic Odyssey at the Design Museum, London 30 March – 03 July 2011. Includes a 13 pages interview with Wim Crouwel by Tony Brook. Fully illustrated with numerous full-color images of posters, sketches, typefaces, and other documents produced by Crouwel as a commercial artist. According to Brooks, “the qualities of his work are plain to see: the distinctive use of abstract typographic forms; the relentless experimentation with the grid; the ability of his work to communicate. He seems to have achieved the perfect balance.”
From the Publisher: “Published to celebrate the major retrospective at the Design Museum in London, this book presents the work of a graphic titan. A pioneer of the new modernity, Wim Crouwel in his early work anticipated the current computer era, and caught the sprit of early space age futurism. His programmatic approach to graphic design, his innovative use of grid systems, and his hunger for typographic experimentation, is as relevant today as it was when he first began working as a graphic designer in the 1950s.
“But this is not a usual formulaic design book: instead, Crouwel’s posters, catalogues, documents, manuals—even his stamps and personal photographs—are presented in the raw, bare-concrete setting of the Crouwel archive.
“As Tony Brook, the exhibition’s curator and the book’s co-editor and designer, notes: “This approach exposes the process of making an exhibition, and of imparting the sense of discovery as archive boxes are opened to reveal hidden treasure. It also gives a greater sense of Crouwel’s work as objects that functioned in the real world rather than mere representations seen in only in books.“
“The book contains an interview with Wim Crouwel conducted by Tony Brook. During the course of the discussion, Crouwel describes his early life, his formative years—including his period at Total Design—and his philosophy of design.
“The book comes with three different cover photographs, and a variety of title stickers.“
“Designers are confident in their ability to find forms that ‘visually curate’ a book’s content, and Spin’s design for the Graphic Odyssey catalogue, by photographing the exhibits in the entirely functional setting of their storage, uses a simple and effective device to do this. Exhibition design in its three dimensions also has the potential to articulate content. As the print medium in which Crouwel took such pleasure declines, this could become one of the most exciting genres for designers.” — Jessica Jenkins [Eye no. 80 vol. 20 2011]
“Wim Crouwel is one of the notable Dutch graphic designers of his generation. In his leading role in the firm of Total Design (hereafter ‘TD’), from its foundation in 1963 through to the 1980s, Crouwel worked at the heart of Dutch design in the years when this phenomenon began to crystallize and to gain international recognition. If one applies the test of design for the national airline, it may be some measure of Dutch cultural reticence that around the time of the sharp upswing in the post-1945 prosperity – from 1958 – the new identity for KLM (‘Royal Dutch Airlines’) was designed at F.H.K. Henrion’s studio in London; but soon such jobs would go to TD. For example, from the mid-1960s this young firm was at work on the signing for Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (designed by a group under the direction of partner Benno Wissing), and thus TD’s lowercase-only sanserif typography contributed to the first impressions of the country for anyone flying in. (The calm interiors at Schiphol – still surviving, although the signs are now being replaced – were designed by Kho Lang Ie, with whom Crouwel had worked in partnership in the 1950s.) And from 1963, after the retirement of Willem Sandberg and the accession of Edy de Wilde, Crouwel and TD became designers to Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum: both a local municipal institution and by then an important component of the international art scene . . . .
“By the 1970s, TD seemed to be acting out all the meanings of its title, not just the ‘cross-disciplinary’ implication. From early on in his career, as part of his own ‘total’ approach to his profession, Wim Crouwel has sat on committees and juries, delivered addresses and lectures, written articles, and held academic positions (notably at the Technische Hogeschool Delft). This tireless public work reached its apex in 1985 when he took up the directorship of the the Boymans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.
“In 1993, aged 65, Wim Crouwel retired from his position at the Boymans Museum. In advance of this, early in 1990, Frederike Huygen, then curator of design in that museum, began to make plans to write and produce a book about Crouwel. It would mark his retirement, not with a simple celebration, but rather with a sophisticated and critical discussion. It is remarkable that Wim Crouwel should have put himself and his archive – then acquired by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam – at the disposal of the researchers, with no strings attached, no attempt by him to interfere or control: this unusual willingness to become the subject of a critical experiment helps to explain the nature of the book that was finally made. —Robin Kinross