Festival programmes might not be the most obvious starting points for creating a “serious book”, but when the Ekko Festival of Bergen, Norway asked for specifically that it proved an interesting challenge. The goal became to quite simply create a programme that might prove a source of reference in the future, and sit nicely on your book-shelf, even after the reader has used it to plan out an evening of entertainment and spilled drinks all over it.
Beyond the expansive texts about individual artists, the book also features essays related to the programme, creating a strong literary framework. It feels and looks, thanks to its high-bulk paper, weighty. The inside of the dust-jacket and front pages mimic the marbling of heavy literary works, but look closer and you will (perhaps) see that it’s a combination of paint-spots and… clouds? If you decide to take the jacket off completely you will see an exposed stitched spine, and reveal that the jacket is in fact the cover, and functions as a poster.
Design: Blank Blank and Rannveig Lohne
Year: 2011
Published by: Foreningen Ekko and Lydgalleriet
Editor: Asle bake Brodin, Jørgen Larsson, Emilio Sanhueza og Henning Severud.
Pages: 64
Softcover: 240 x 170 mm