BOOK REVIEW

Design + Life 2, a new series of 10 books published by Jianping He

Philippe Apeloig	Lex Drewinski	Fantasmas	Christof Gassner	Pekka Loiri
Shin Matsunaga	Leonardo Sonnoli	Georg Staehelin	David Tartakover	Rosmarie Tissi

All books are edited and designed by Jianping He in the series Design + Life 2, published by Chongqing Publishing House, Chongqing (CN) (2005); 166 pages, 17 x 24 cm, many colour illustrations, mostly full page; softcover; in chinese and english; CNY 75 (about US$ 9), the whole set of ten volumes is available in Europe at EUR ??? from PingPoster@t-online.de.

The respective ISBN numbers are: Philippe Apeloig 7-5366-7127-X ; Lex Drewinski 7-5366-7134-2 ; Fantasmas 7-5366-7135-0 ; Christof Gassner 7-5366-7132-6 ; Pekka Loiri 7-5366-7129-6 ; Shin Matsunaga 7-5366-7130-X ; Leonardo Sonnoli 7-5366-7133-4 ; Georg Staehelin 7-5366-7131-8 ; David Tartakover 7-5366-7128-8 ; Rosmarie Tissi 7-5366-7126-1

Jianping He

Sample page from Rosmarie Tissi's book

After having published a first series of ten graphic designers monographies Design + Life in 2004, and another series of six books Master & Students, Jianping He continues his beautiful work with this new series of another ten books. The format, size and concept of Design + Life 2 is the same as in the previous series, only the book covers have been changed. Each book begins with a full page portrait, followed by 10 answers for 10 questions, a short article, often written by a colleague of the artist, and then lots of pictures, reproductions of works but also photos, sketches, views of the studio, travel pictures, posters in their natural surroundings in the streets and so on. They conclude with a biography, list of exhibitions, awards and publications. The main interest of all the subjects so far is poster design, and so posters take up the best part of the books, however logos, stamps, book design and other graphic design work is also included. Needless to say, all books are well designed, printed and produced, it is a pleasure to browse through them. Even for designers that have been well published, like Apeloig, Tissi or Drewinski, there is never a feeling of "deja vu". For the others that I knew less well, many pictures are real discoveries that make me wonder how many poster treasures are still waiting to be dug up, maybe in future "Design + Life" books?

Here are some poster samples:

Philippe Apeloig	Lex Drewinski	El Fantasma de Heredia
Christof Gassner	Pekka Loiri	Shin Matsunaga
Leonardo Sonnoli	Georg Staehelin	David Tartakover

and some answers to the 10 questions: How is design present in your life? "Always and everywhere. The furniture, the clothes, the car, everything is design and these objects are testimonies of taste and attitude" (Rosmarie Tissi) "Design is linked to my reality and I am surrounded by it." (David Tartakover) Does your design inspiration come from your life-experience? Where does your inspiration come from? "Inspiration comes from my knwoledge of the past, from the knwledge of the history, from the colleague that I consider better than me (from my envy, therefore) and from my character." (Leonardo Sonnoli) Who is the main influence in your life? Who is the main influence in your design? "In my life, the main influence is my family. In my design, I cannot particularly indicate anyone as main influence. Rather, I would say that I am influenced by averything in my living space at the moment, as well as DNA that exists within me". (Shin Matsunaga) What is your life-philosophy? And what is your design-philosophy? "Keep it simple - less is beautiful!." (Pekka Loiri) Which was the happiest moment in your life? "Mmmm... what an indsicreet question! So, let's talk in terms of profession. Maybe we cannot call it 'the happiest' but 'one with a very deeo emotion', some years ago, when we suddenly realized that people we respect so much and from we have learnt (although they didn't know that!) came closer to us and some of them became friends." (El Fantasma de Heredia) "This interview" (Lex Drewinski) What is your motivation to stick to the design-job? "As well-known Sisyphus couldn't let go of rolling the stone up over and over ..." (Christof Gassner) What are your top personal achievements? "First of all, embracing a whole new culture (the french culture) as a child of immigrants was a challenge. Then, after making art a major part of my life, I no longer felt anxious about not contributing to the society. It is my principal motivation for living". (Philippe Apeloig) How do you manage your free time? "Very well. I've never been bored." (Rosmarie Tissi) "I don't have any free time; the time is managing me, not the other way round." (Lex Drewinski) What are your hobbies? "We don't live with that division of busy time and free time, nor 'serious things' and hobbies." (El Fantasma de Heredia) "I don't have 'hobbies' (also a term that I utterly dislike)." (Christof Gassner) "I have no hobbies." (Georg Staehelin) "My collections are my hobbies" (David Tartakover) When do you plan to retire and how do you plan after your retirement? "That's very far from us now, we're just at the beginning." (El Fantasma de Heredia) "There is plenty of time left." (Christof Gassner) "I don't plan it. Others will do this for me" (Lex Drewinski) "I do not intend to retire as long as my job still gives me such pleasure." (Georg Staehelin) "Never ..." (Pekka Loiri) I am still amazed how Jianping can do all this. In the time of only two years, he has established himself as a major international force in poster book publishing. It feels like in spring when you go out in the garden and look at a small plant, and come back the next day and it has doubled in size, has grown new leaves and you wonder how it will look like as a tree some day.