Ten Things I Know about Belgian Graphic Design
By Rick Poynor
8. Structure Jurgen Maelfeyt’s book design for the Beaufort 03 Art by the Sea triennial held in 2009 shares many of the same features and virtues as Brusatto’s Sint-Truiden project. I saw plenty of Belgian publications like this during my survey and it would have been easy, though not sufficiently revealing, to fill all ten spaces with similar examples. Maelfeyt, like Brusatto, opts for a cool-to-the-touch, uncoated cover board. The old photo on the cover evokes the traditional pleasures of the seaside and this scratched and blurry image could equally be visual evidence from an art project. A book like this, close to a directory in size, must show many images documenting a wide range of projects and the designer faces the problem of devising a lucid visual system for this quantity of material that avoids seeming mechanical or repetitive. Maelfeyt’s primary tool of enhancement is colour. He enlivens the inside covers with a blast of vibrant blue. The introductory texts are set against pale blue pages that in no way reduce their legibility and translations at the back are on a delicate yellow. The book is no more than it needs to be, but Maelfeyt’s ability to anticipate and satisfy the reader’s hope for functionality tempered with delight is the essence of successful book design. (Kwintessens, december 2009)