BOOK REVIEW
Design + Life, a series of 10 books published by Jianping He
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Sample page from Henning Wagenbreth's book |
Jianping He, a young chinese graphic designer, living, working and teaching in Berlin, Germany, has published a
large number of monographies on contemporary graphic designers during the last two years, and keeps producing even more. They
are intended for chinese graphic designers as an introduction to the internationally leading personalities in their field.
This immense work is possible not only because Jianping He has seemingly inexhaustible energy and is well organized, but also because he has
a clear and simple concept for the series and sticks to it:
Each book begins with a full page portrait, followed by 10 answers for 10 questions, a short article, often written by a colleague of the artist, and then lots of pictures, reproductions of works but also photos, sketches, views of the studio, posters in their natural surroundings in the streets and so on. They conclude with a biography, list of exhibitions, awards and publications. Jianping works closely with his subjects, and apparently gives them a lot of freedom to present themselves, including sitting with them in front of the monitor and fine tuning the layout together. They of course like this opportunity, and in Warsaw last summer during the poster biennial, I heard several of them raving about "this young chinese guy who published a book about ME!" . With 166 pages each, the books are spacious enough to also present previously unpublished material and I discovered new posters even of designers that I thought I was familiar with. |
Here are some more samples:
Michal Batory
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Ronald Curchod
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Andrey Logvin
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Alan Fletcher
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Bruno Monguzzi
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Alain Le Quernec
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Alex Jordan, Nous travaillons ensemble
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Yossi Lemel
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U.G. Sato
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and some answers to the 10 questions:
Jianping He is doing an admirable job for cultural exchange and these books are well made in every respect.
Now wouldn't it be interesting if a young designer from the western world
would go to live in China and started publishing books about the graphic designers there?
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