At the annual election of Best Bücher from All the World in Leipzig two Dutch books were awarded the highest prizes. The Golden Letter has been awarded to On the Necessity of Gardening† The Gold Medal went to with chairspublished and created by Kuan-Ting Chen, third year student at ArtEz art academy in Arnhem.
A jury of experts judged the books in terms of content, design, image treatment, typography, material, printing and binding method. Thirty countries submitted 328 books for the prize this year. Each year, the Best Dutch Book Designs Foundation makes a selection of 33 Dutch book titles for the jury in Leipzig. The selection will be exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam after the summer.
The award-winning book On the Necessity of Gardening (on the necessity of gardening) was designed by Bart de Baets and published by Valiz together with the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. It is about how artists, writers, poets and thinkers have used the garden as a source of inspiration over the centuries.
With Chairs deals with the relationship between people and objects. Third-year student Kuan-Ting Chen made use of images from the archives of the Rijksstudio of the Rijksmuseum. It’s about sketches of the chair, photo documentation of the chair and images of how people interact with chairs. The designer has made a connection between the shape of chairs and of books. For example, the shape of a half-open book (L-shape) can be seen as the backrest and the seat.