A4, 64 pages, Colour printing, Saddle stitched, Softcover, 2021

After being invited to contribute to the Palace of Typographic Masonry, Esther de Vries wondered: ‘Which aspect of graphic design is of specific value to me?’ As a graphic designer who mainly focuses on book design, it didn’t take long before she started thinking about those books in my bookcase that serve as particular source of inspiration. They all have a certain quality that makes her lose herself in their pages, leading to new discoveries every time she picks them up.

Taking these particular books off the shelf, she was surprised how different, unique and surprising they all are. But nevertheless she feels they all have something in common: in each case, content and design are strongly intertwined – inseparable even. I therefore would like to call these books: inextricable. This is how ‘The Library of Inextricable Books’ was born.

To get a better picture of this category of books and to be able to look beyond her own bookcase Esther de Vries asked graphic designers Linda van Deursen, Catherine Guiral and Julia Born to react and extend this growing collection. And in case these colleagues were involved with the making process of a certain book to tell her how the book originated.

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