Carolin Rauen Intuitive Design
Christmas is the time of the year, when you think on your beloved ones, when you pause for a moment to say “thank you”. Still one of the nicest ways to tell is by a handwritten postcard, a little personal surprise in the moment of opening the postbox in the everyday rush – and even more, if it’s not a cheesy golden-stars-and-tree ensemble but a simple black-and-white design that manages to put a smile on the face!
The second edition of the re-designed Hamburg yearbook of literature welcomes readers with a shiny field of metallic blue hot foil with a scene from space – two astronauts who landed on the lettering “Ziegel” (brick), an illustration by Sascha Hommer. Inside, fifty writers present their texts from poetry to graphic novel and fiction.
“A small number of fine things” is the title of Karin Rocke’s Edition 2021. Romantic coloring and masculine elements mix to an extraordinary tension. The color scale ranges from soft lemon and rusty coral to milky white and deep navy. These beautiful tones come back in soft gradients in the layout to stress the connection to the pictures. Welcome, summer!
Iris Anemone Paul is an illustrator based in Hamburg. With a focus on graphic reproduction techniques like silk-screen printing, woodcarving and etching, Iris creates lovely, playful and warm sceneries for her characters and narratives. In 2019 she was the two times winner of the “Deutsches Jugendliteraturpreis” (German Youth Literature Prize) for her book “Polka für Igor”. I am already looking forward for her next books to come!
Camilla Grudova takes us into a scary-magical and grotesquely humorous universe, populated by dolls, sewing machines, tin cans and mirrors, determined by absurd ideologies and strange rules. The artwork on the book cover by Maurizio Anzeri and the typography transport the mix of beauty and distraction in an almost tangible, three dimensional way.