Hans van der Meer – Schapen Tellen

Book coverHans van der Meer – Schapen Tellen
Book coverHans van der Meer – Schapen Tellen
Book coverHans van der Meer – Schapen Tellen
Book coverHans van der Meer – Schapen Tellen

How many words should we spend on a book without a word in it? This is a book for the eight-to-eighty-eight age bracket; square, with cardboard pages. It consists of twenty-three full spread, full bleed photographs of sheep in farmer Jaap Henke’s North Holland meadow. The subject is safely entrusted to photographer Hans van der Meer, practised as he is in taking photographs of football fields. The text on the back cover warns that counting sheep is more difficult than you think, a point driven home in the very first picture which shows us a sheep with eight feet. But at least the designer gives a helping hand by not cutting off a single sheep. Meanwhile rounded corners and a hollow spine make the book an agreeable object.

It is rare for idea, title, material and execution to be so closely interwoven as here. The panel found it enviable. A great bouncy ball of a book.

Edition: 2007
Language: Dutch
Publisher: Nieuw Amsterdam, Amsterdam
Graphic designer: Steef Liefting
Lithographer: Nauta en Haagen, Oss
Printer: Leo Paper Products, Hong Kong (CN)
Binder: Leo Paper Products, Hong Kong (CN)
Size book block (w x h x d in mm): 209 x 209 x 22
Number of pages: 44 p.
Print run: 3,000
Price: € 12.50
ISBN: 978 90 468 0206 9
Font and foundry: Gill Sans
Binding style: cardboard book with a hollow spine
Material: 400gsm Simwhite cardboard CIS