Demanifest by Stephen Johnston and Michael Spoljaric; Die Gestalten Verlag, 2003

You’ve obviously spent a lot of time breaking new ground at DGV, in the creation, layout, and format of your books; certainly foraging into new territory. Who if any, were the people you looked to as reference points, as progenitors for your work?

Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Luis Bunuel, Marlene Dietrich, John Peel, John Lydon, Charlie Parker, Ken Adam, Stanislaw Lem, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Len Lye, Billy Wilder, Siouxsie Sioux, Saul Bass, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys, Matthew Barney, Martin Scorsese, Bernard Hermann, dozens of writers, hundreds of musicians.

72-dpi; Die Gestalten Verlag, 2003

Many if not all of the designers you work with are not only working in the print medium but also digital, video and others. What difficulties did these other mediums present in portrayal for you on the page, and how did you overcome them?

In 3Deluxe, DSOS1, 72-dpi Anime, Device, Writing and other books a DVD or CDR is included which presents digital material. DSOS1 is the best example I guess how a book on a series of digital projects might work. Print certainly has limitations, but also offer the possibilities not to just recapitulate digital work on paper, but reinterpreting the content.

What a Happy Life & Death! by Furi Furi Company; Die Gestalten Verlag, 2002

At a time when so many publishing companies are looking at ways to take things which are printed and make them digital, your company is regularly doing the exact opposite. You have successfully made paper extremely relevant to a digital culture. To be tapped to do a book by DGV is to have reached a high degree of success in design. What are your thoughts on this dichotomy? Do you see a dichotomy there or do you see something else? What are your thoughts on the future of paper versus the digital, the electronic? Where is DGV going with respect to these issues?

Books are physical, they weigh, smell and even burn. The human tendency towards material is much older than books. You touch and possess, for some people there is an almost metaphysical relation between material and the material carrying the information. Materialisation focuses on turning often fleeting design elements (e.g web structures) into tangible objects to impart them with a lasting, physical substance. The tactile element, an adequate transformation that doesn’t stoop to short-lived sensationalism, plays a vital part in this: the idea of “form follows function” is joined by the equally important “function follows form”. Printed work can claim an enormous fetish character – people primarily concerned with virtual or abstract design use books to reclaim and materialise their own lifestyles. Music fans, too, feel this passionate urge to possess their cherished sounds in the original packaging or possibly a special edition – homemade copies would not suffice. By and by the possibilities offered within the digital realm will blend with materialized content. At this point nobody buys a book because of an additional DVD or CDR. The content is still vitual the silver disk could contain almost any crap. It will take some time until the more abstract digital content will become accepted. It is about changing paradigms.

Writing by Markus Mai and Arthur Remke; Die Gestalten Verlag, 2003

As you look into the future, do you see the different medias continuing to merge? What do you think this will mean for design? What will it mean for DGV?

It means to keep watching what is happening around us, to test and to fail at times. Imagine a travel book. You could easily imagine might contain analogue information (photos, charts), hyperlink to the web (for any information that might change regularly like telephone numbers, list of hotels, tide charts etc) and a DVD (with some clips on the location, hikes, music etc). Future book concepts will use the advantages of different media.

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