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Books
· 2024
Atlas of Small Harbours
Client
Uitgeverij Graniet, a publisher in Rotterdam, for a photobook by Marit Oosterhoff
Year
2024
Discipline
Books
Scope
Book design, typography, cover, pre-press
With
Marit Oosterhoff (photographs)
A photobook of forty harbours too small for most maps, laid out like an atlas: one harbour per spread, one fact per harbour.
Fig. 1 Spread for harbour 17: the plate on the left, the photograph uncropped on the right.
Brief
Marit Oosterhoff photographed harbours on the North Sea and Wadden coasts for six summers. Uitgeverij Graniet wanted one book of 288 pages, printed in black on uncoated paper, to sell for under 30 euros.
Approach
Every harbour gets a spread: the photograph on the right-hand page, uncropped, and on the left a plate with its name in capitals, the number of boats counted on the day and the time of high water. The grid bends to fit each photograph, not the other way round. The cover is grey board with the title blind-debossed, no ink, so it reads by touch before it reads by eye.
Result
The first printing of 1,800 sold out in five months and the second has a cloth spine. The book was shortlisted for the Grafische Prijs Zuid-Holland 2025.
288 pages
40 harbours
1 ink
Fig. 2 Cover, grey board with the title blind-debossed.
Fig. 3 The plate caption: boats counted, high water, depth.