Every year, the Dutch Foundation De Best Verzorgde Boeken presents the most outstanding book designs of the past year. The publications in the exhibition are selected for their distinctive design, typography, image treatment, graphic production, and overall balance between form and content. In good book design, the form complements the tone and feel of the content. Exceptional design stems from a collaboration between a client (usually a publisher), a designer and the graphic industry.
“Hard Werken One For All Graphic Art & Design 1979-1994” has been selected as one of the 33 Best Dutch Book Designs of 2018! Congratulations 75B, Valiz Publishers and Tienkamp Printers and, of course, Hard Werken Design!
The first major publication on the innovative and experimental design work produced by the vanguard design group Hard Werken, which made its first appearance in the late 1970s as an eponymous magazine. Born of the collective desire of a group of young, Rotterdam-based graphic designers to express themselves, the group’s core members were Henk Elenga, Kees de Gruiter, Gerard Hadders, Tom van den Haspel, Willems Kars, and Rick Vermeulen. This chunky and outlandish book dives into Hard Werken’s anarchic design – contrary to typographic conventions and modernist currents of the time – as a brash, elusive, and distinctly Rotterdam phenomenon.
Presentation of the best Dutch book designs 2018 will take place in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in autumn 2019.
