Otto Treumann: Graphic design in the Netherlands

Graphis, May/Jun 2002 by Apeloig, Philippe

Otto Treumann: Graphic design in the Netherlands Edited by Kees Broos Design by Irma Boom 010 Publishers, 2001 140 pages, 7-3/8" x 9-1/2" $30,(paperback)

Irma Boom designed the book Otto Treumann / Graphic Design in the Netherlands to match the movement of a movie camera as it pans across shots and then zooms in for close-ups. The book's cover-made up of myriad bits and pieces of images--could be equated to a film's opening credits. Page after page, the pictures are increasingly blown up until reaching full frame; their recurrence is akin to flashbacks. Readers are introduced to Otto Treumann's work head on: the variety of colors, the geometrically fashioned letters and graphic compositions. Page 25, frozen-frame: the first family pictures, in black-and-white, bearing witness to young Otto's childhood. Then comes the text, like a voice-over. The layout in the form of narrow columns makes for speedy reading, lending a rhythmic beat that teems with energy. Multicolored tabs (are these really necessary?) referring to the captions at the end of the work punctuate Boom's graphic design.

Treumann's private life reflects the 20th-- century tragedy endured by the Jewish people as a whole. In his case, Germany's anti-Semitism drove the family into exile to Holland. His parents' deportation and his own survival of the Shoah forged his artistic sensitivity, his passion to create and his deep sense of commitment. Commitment is a personal matter to Treumann, an ideological stand at a far remove from running with the crowd. This comes through in Toon Lauwen's commentary, which highlights the important role personal experience plays in Treumann's oeuvre.

Indeed, Treumann succeeded in combining personal enthusiasm and customer demands, developing a clear-cut, at once conceptual and practical communication technique. He favored strict, spare and functional typography. A graphic artist to his fingertips, and past master of printing techniques, Treumann designed several masterpieces-for instance, his memorable "Federatie" (1946), with its beams of color converging into a square of light. In 1962, he came up with the idea of a global visual identity for the Israeli airline company El Al, for which he created an easy-to-remember company logo. Sequence after sequence across its pages, this book presents the highly original career of one of Holland's leading graphic designers, revealing it as a turning point between those who pioneered in the field and the new wave.

Handwritten letters, sketches, posters, stamps, catalogs, logos, and intimist snapshots present a graphic artist who stood up for his profession, yet was imbued with modesty and humanism. His severe it colorful and decidedly modern creations bear witness to a painstakingly conceived oeuvre that has proven dynamic, alive and everlasting.

It is this vivacity that Irma Boom succeeds in bringing out in most intelligent fashion. One could perhaps fault the book's cinematographically-inspired layout for being somewhat at odds with the restraint characterizing the lifework it describes. Still and all, it represents a handsome tribute by one generation to the other, and by a woman to a man. Building up Into a crescendo, the book ends with enlarged details (the blowups in fact exceed the page dimensions) that promise to leave an indelible mark on its readers.