The first visit to the air-conditioned “strong-room” in the Stifts-archiv (monastery archive) of St. Gallen with the monastery archivist Peter Erhart was a very special moment. We encountered a fascinating organizational system with chests, drawers, boxes and portfolios for artistically made cards and documents, which may only be handled by those wearing gloves. Then there were the books in the full-height shelving – with the appropriate respect we took down the handwritten originals and the first examples of printed material. The books are medium size, not constrained by any kind of current day standardization, in bindings made of fantastic materials, cardboard, linen and leather. The thread-stitched, hand-bound books could be easily opened and the individual details of the binding conveyed a great understanding of functionality. We were surprised by the unusual form of the areas of text and the layout. In many cases pages were divided vertically in the middle, the outer columns were empty or used only marginally, whereas the columns of text that run into the gutter margin were covered from top to bottom with precise calligraphies in small lettering and with an animated but yet rhythmical expression. The archivist explained to us that this “half-page” system was adopted to leave room for later entries, commentaries and additions. Peter Erhart then showed us the finds that he had selected, which were to be the actual focus of this project: four original diaries kept by travelling monks. The two curators, Peter Erhart and Jakob Kuratli Hüeblin, wanted to present these rare documents of the Benedictine culture of travel to the public for the first time. They planned an exhibition in the culture space of the Stiftsarchiv, an exhibition catalogue and academic publications, with translations of the Latin texts into German and Italian. These diaries are about travels in southern Europe, which in those days were often undertaken by aristocrats, musicians and men of letters, in this case with a religious background and the appropriate travel goals: first of all Rome as a spiritual centre, then on to Naples, regarded at that time as the world’s most beautiful city. “Vedi Napoli e poi muori – Die Grand Tour der Mönche (“See Naples and Die – The Grand Tour of the Monks”), was the title of the project that refers to travels and life, the secular and the spiritual. Reinhard Gassner

The art book seems ethereal, as delicate as the artist’s abstract work cycles themselves. The reproductions on smooth but uncoated natural paper are restrained, they deliberately do not present any exaggerated contrasts. The book core begins and ends with a thin material, almost like tissue paper, which provides a fine tonal and tactile contrast to the rest of the paper. Its light transparency means that the large depictions of the drawings are overlaid polyphonically. The book cover is covered with gauze that is printed on the back. The cover image extends from the title across the spine to the back cover. It is a concept sketch for the biographical work “Einschnitte”. Opaqueness is consciously addressed, not just in the artist’s work or in the book core itself, but even on the cover.

The two-volume edition is based on the four original travel diaries of the St. Gallen monks, which had already been addressed in the exhibition describing the grand tour to Rome from the period 1696 – 1749. Whereas volume one deals with the entire journey of the four monks to Rome, volume 2 describes the stay in Rome and Naples as well as the return journey. Originally written in Latin, the diaries were translated into German and Italian. Facsimile pages of the diaries in the original size, printed on thin opaque paper, which are bound in the middle of the book, represent a bibliophile specialty. The columns of text are shifted towards the middle of the book forming a narrow gutter margin and leaving wide outer margins. The publishers commented upon and augmented the text lavishly with quotations, text references or full versions of names. In the volume “Itinera Italica I” we used a deep indigo blue as a decorative and distinction color, for “Itinera Italica II” a dark porphyry red. The hard covers are also lined with material in these colors. The handwritten pages of the diaries, which are printed with a low light-dark contrast, display a discretion that is intended as a reference to monastic secrecy – at the time only the abbot was initially allowed to read the diaries.

A book for practical work and information. The main focus is on the many years of experience that this builder in clay has acquired, organized according to the themes: floor, wall, opening, ceiling. These four chapters in the middle of the book are deliberately designed in black and white, structured by generously sized introductory pictures and axonometric plan drawings. The plans, which were produced especially for the book, play a leading role in the explanations. Thin strips running along the edges of the pages at different positions in the core book guide the reader. In the volume of the book itself the strips create a striking sectional image – in the list of contents they form thematically based pictograms. Colour illustrations surround the core content: a series of pictures of completed buildings at the front, photos of building processes and the workshop at the back. The horizontal texture of layers of rammed earth is cut into the dust cover. You feel tempted to run your finger across this image in order to make the cut paper and the lettering printed on it move. On the cover the tactile quality of this building material is both echoed and honoured.

This hard cover book, which has a transparent dust cover and printed on ecru-coloured natural paper documents building with wood as applied research: the new building Illwerke Zentrum Montafon. Alongside the end result it also presents the basis for and the development of the building; the achievement of the planners is given as much space as the completed building and even the cover puts the systematic before the naturalistic. Easily legible plan graphics, some of them on fold-out pages, are harmonized with each other in terms of scale and form an entity with further explanatory and diagram graphics. The text in German (Foundry Form serif) and English (Foundry Journal) is differentiated in typographical terms, the line wrapping is dense but at the same time generously formed.

Under this title the Stiftsarchiv St. Gallen presents an exhibition about the travel culture of the Benedictines. It offers a view of the monks’ surprising high level of mobility, and their interest in the language and culture of the south at a time when travelling was still an art. The objective is to structure the theme itself as well as the large amount of valuable exhibits (texts and images) and to present them scenographically in a space measuring 600m². The exhibition area is transformed into an urban space with lanes, corners, squares and interiors. The contents are structured and divided up between four boxes that you can walk into. At one and the same time they could be both containers for transport (outside) and studioli (inside) and are ascribed to the four thematic areas Peregrinatio, Instructio, Recreatio and Memorabilia. Essentially, the life of the pieces on display develops inside these boxes. Using specially developed patterns, colours and signets made up of initials the studioli are immersed in a baroque, semiotically charged atmosphere. The design work was preceded by research in the appropriate places and in Rome itself. The interplay between density and calm is developed in a way that is similar to the contrast between the travels of the monks and their usual life based on contemplation and stabilitas loci.

The contributions in this book deal with Lech as a place to live and an economic unit, with its natural setting and with the history and identity of the Walser people. The various authors were allowed to decide on the focal points of their contributions. The major design challenge lay in finding a uniform design framework for the scientifically-based contents and the variety of visual material. The strictly flush alignment of the double page ensures coherence. The generously sized edge column allows a variety of uses and provides the space needed for very different combinations of text and image. The Trinité family of fonts, a modern book antiqua by Bram de Does, determines the typography of the continuous text. For the marginalia and function texts Foundry Sans by David Quay and Freda Sack is used in a reduced size. The type design is differentiated and, despite the considerable density, can be read with comfort. The strict basic modulor is never a shackle but rather a support for an open book design that makes skilful used of the white area. The book core, which is worked through from the smallest detail to the large scale, is produced in excellent lithographic and print technique and finished and bound in a bibliophile manner. The book core is packed in a newly developed concept for the full linen front and back endpapers and in a dust jacket that can be “worn” on either side. It shows a photographic winter or summer motif from the Lech area, both of the same size.

rattata – thea – arte – hehe … one day people in the town of St. Gallen were confronted by strange words on billboards. Observers soon deciphered the image as an anagram of the word “Theater”. Reinhard Gassner and Sigi Ramoser created this production as advertising for the new season of the Stadttheater St. Gallen. The elements of the game on the billboards were individual screen-printed letters that make up the word ‘Theater’.

Egg is the name of a small town in the Bregenzerwald, a region with a beautiful mountainous landscape in western Austria. In 2004 the local theatre association organised an international theatre festival. The play of words with the town name Egg and the English word “egg” offered the starting point for a visual game with a figure and an eggshell. In many applications, both analogue and digital, this pair of protagonists repeatedly carried out new tricks. Information fan decks and posters were important stages for successful productions of the ‘egg-shaped’ corporate design program.

Something that cannot be printed in offset, nine colours over each other in full tone. Displacing the font weight to one side, the capital letters of the word “KONZEPT” are printed on top of each other in a series of printing processes. The result is a concentrated density at the centre of the word and very beautiful tones produced by the shades of grey printed over each other. The image is both image and word; it serves as a poster subject for the exhibition of the Vorarlberg artists‘association: “KONZEPT 1” and, one year later, “KONZEPT 2”.