It's been 6 months since the Kickstarter campaign ended unsuccesfully. Paul and I had to rethink how Letters As Symbols would become true.
Today is the day we can proudly announce that the book is available. Hooray!
Paul and I are very happy to tell you that we partnered up with the Belgian publisher Stockmans Art Books. The company started in 1875 and is since then praised for its craftmanship in art books and calendars.
Available on Stockmans Art Books
The book can be ordered on the website of Stockmans Art Books.
Clicking the order button will redirect you to the order page of our publisher.
A celebration of letters as symbols
An alphabet. The Latin alphabet to be more precise. 26 letters, from A to Z. That’s all what it takes for billions of people to be able to communicate with one another. Basic shapes based on typographical rules which make it possible for you to read and understand this text. Rules, which a designer or typographer happily use to bend and stretch in order to communicate a completely different message.
Letters As Symbols is an international selection of 306 trademarks, logos and symbols where every single one of them is a celebration of breaking and pushing the boundaries of typography. The book shows a combination of logos made by worldwide respected pioneers who have given shape to the industry as we know it today and the work of designers who have the same profound skill in logo design, but who don’t have the name or fame.
The book is therefore not only a celebration of letters as symbols, it is also a celebration of owning the skill of logo design.
Untouched for decades
In 1991, Ibou built the foundations of the book Letters As Symbols. The concept, cover and layout were already designed and defined by Ibou himself. The book was never released and remained untouched for decades until Christophe De Pelsemaker and Paul Ibou established a collaboration in 2017.
During his career, Ibou acquired an enormous amount of logos through submission forms that were sent to him by the leading logo and brand identity designers of that time. Letters As Symbols, contains logos from this archive and was completed with contemporary work.
Today, 28 years after Ibou came up with the idea of Letters As Symbols, it is finally made available with the help of our publisher Stockmans Art Books.
Because of the broad variety in the selection of the featured logos, Letters As Symbols forms an excellent source of inspiration for designers, artists, agencies, teachers, typographers, students, and many others who have an interest in logo design, typography and letterforms.
Leading Designers
All works which are included in the book were made by the most talented, reputed and leading designers of the world. Many of these designers have undeniably played an incredibly important role in the development of logo and brand design as how we know it today.
Letters As Symbols features work done by design masters such as: Saul Bass, Alan Fletcher, Burton Kramer, Yasaburo Kuwayama, Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, Rolf Harder, Wim Crouwel, Adrian Frutiger, Paul Ibou, Stuart Ash, Novillo Cruz, Anton Stankowski, Raymond Bellemare, Hermann Zapf and many more.
Who is Paul Ibou?
Paul Ibou was born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1939. Ibou graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (1958) and the Plantin Institute of Typography (1962). In 1962, he started his career as a freelancer based in Antwerp. Ibou received numerous awards and worldwide recognition in specialized press, leading design books and magazines. His work can be found in among others: Trademarks & Symbols of the World (Y. Kuwayama), Logo Modernism (J. Müller & J. WIedemann) and many editions of IDEA magazine.
During his career, Ibou was often a guest speaker at design conferences and a member of international design juries. He is also the publisher of more than 50 books on art, design and logo design.
In 1994 Ibou organized the first World Symbols Festival in Ostend followed by many others in countries such as China, Korea, Japan, Poland, Mexico, Brazil, Czech Republic,… The festivals were fully devoted to the logo as a symbol represented by and with the presence of leading designers. Today, Ibou is sporadically active as an artist and curator of his personal exhibitions in his atelier in Zandhoven, Belgium.
