Herman Hertzberger / Wim Crouwel / Ger van Elk

A Dutch graphic designer, Wim Crouwel, architect, Herman Hertzberger and artist, Ger van Elk were honoured for their life long achievement in the Dutch arts with a prize and publication. The client, Fund BKVB, wanted three books in a case, but Thonik proposed to spend part of the budget on an experimental covering material, thus holding the three books together by a material finish instead of a case. The books are covered with woven portraits. In the Netherlands all that is left of a once enormous textile industry is a small factory for woven labels. The covers were made on these weaving machines, using a combination of two thread colours for each book. Since the 'rapport' of the machine is only 20 centimetres and the books are 22 centimetres high, the covers show part of two repeating images, each copy displaying a unique combination of the two identical images.