CO-OPs is the name of an ambitious project in which art and science are brought together at various levels and in a variety of media. The participants are concerned with the great challenges facing our society: the globalization, commercialization and technologization of almost every aspect of human life.

Designer Hansje van Halem has succeeded in designing a book befitting these ambitions. It is a book that reveals itself in your hands. Thanks to the use of 90gsm text stock it is still compact and supple despite its 416 pages. The sober cover is in 300gsm greyboard that was first printed in transparent white so that the colours on the back and spine are not absorbed.

One inherent problem of having Dutch and English text in the one volume is solved by illustrating both with identical black-and-white reference images. Most of these return elsewhere in the book in a larger size and in colour.

Some panel members thought there was little subtlety in the typography but the majority liked the use of Gerard Unger’s Big Vesta and Capitolium. The red spot colour used throughout the book creates an impression of freshness and acts to offset the heavy stuff of the contents. Rarely can the notes in a book have received so much attention: note cues in the text have made way for a pontifical red line leading the reader to the note in the front margin.