Four Atlases

Joost Grootens (1971) studied architectural design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Between 1995 and 2000 he worked on projects in the fields of architecture, interactive media and the public realm. The design of his first book, Metaspaces in 1988, was a turning point in his career. Since then he has focussed primarily on designing books about architecture, urbanism and art with a specialism in designing atlases.

Grootens is not led by a specific style or aesthetic preferences. He says: ‘For me making books is primarily about organising information. I am less interested in a stylistic language’. His designs are based upon the graphic conventions of books such as architecture monographs, photo books and atlases. Grootens has used insights into the presentation of information in other media such as the internet in his books to create extensive visual indexes and navigation systems.

‘The book is not a linear medium, but a data carrier with various possible points of entry’. The result is a well-balanced combination of text, maps, photography and information graphics. The reader is carefully guided by the book’s content and can access the information on several levels.

‘While the internet and the computer have the benefit of speed, accessibility and interaction, books have the benefit of image quality, concentration and materiality. It is these elements that I optimise in my designs’, says Grootens. ‘I give a great deal of attention to the choice of paper and the binding and I often make use of non-standard colour palettes. No cyan, magenta, yellow and black. I use the entire spectrum of inks, from specific colours to fluorescent and metallic inks. Particularly in atlases, which you study in detail, you don’t want to look at colours made up of numerous inks.’

The results are exemplary. His 'Metropolitan World Atlas' (2005) and 'Vinex Atlas' (2008) were awarded the gold medal in the international competition Schönste Bücher aus aller Welt.