Fever Dream - Victor Verhelst

A unique portfolio book bundles five years of work by digital artist Victor Verhelst. The aim was to blur the line between printing and art. Whereas books used to be small works of art and are often considered disposable today, the designers wanted to create something that is much more than a fleeting coffee table book. A specially developed variable font moves with the content, supporting Victor Verhelst’s visual experimentation, also in terms of typography.

Using a new Fedrigoni paper and an innovative digital printing technique, an almost Pantone-worthy body of work nigh on 500 pages was created. Each copy is also unique: the back cover shows a different fragment of a monumental artwork Victor created especially for this project. The complete work will be visible only once, when all the books are put together during the opening of his solo exhibition at the Plus One Gallery.

The jury on Fever Dream - Victor Verhelst:

The book Fever Dream is compelling, with its extreme power and maximalist approach. The multiplicity and excess are not weaknesses, but the strength of the whole: a total experience in which the sum is more than the parts. Its elaboration is thorough and spectacular. The project exudes the joy of creating and manages to convey that feeling quite convincingly.

What does this award mean to you?

For us, this award means that there is still room in the design field for fun and feverish experimentation. It was a dream to realise a project like this based on our own creative freedom, without compromise and without intermediaries, both financially and conceptually. This gave us a sense of real freedom in a world that is often mainly focused on profit. Therefore, we are immensely pleased to receive appreciation for it.

How did the idea for this project come about?

Victor Verhelst had long wanted to publish his work in print, initially as a small paper because he was funding it himself. After seeing his work, Corbin convinced him to make a larger book, on the condition that Lennart Van den Bossche and Corbin would design it. Practical questions about cost, pages and a publisher came up, but everything fell into place after talking to Larah Lezy of Fedrigoni, who wanted to test new paper with lots of colour. Thus the collaboration and the plan was born for a book comprising more than 500 pages. Victor also wanted to highlight digital printing technology, a more ecological way of printing that has a higher colour range than classic CMYK offset printing.

What makes your project so special?

On several levels. It is a project that was a labour of love and accomplished entirely in-house. We used the new digital FOGRA printing technology, which will make printing cheaper and more colour sophisticated in the future. For us, it was also an experiment in approaching book design itself as an art form. Victor created a unique artwork stretching across all the back covers of the books. When you put them together, it forms one large whole. It means that each owner literally acquires a piece of Victor’s work, something that was only possible thanks to digital printing technology. We want to emphasise conceptually that graphic design and book art are small works of art in themselves, made with as much love as admiration for the medium.

How does it contribute to a better world?

Our project contributes to a better world by revaluing book art and graphic design as autonomous art forms. It brings an artist’s digital archive and sketches to life in a physical medium. By using innovative techniques like digital FOGRA printing, we encourage sustainable, high-quality and affordable production and hope to inspire other artists starting out on their career. Moreover, we encourage creativity and experimentation by making classic concepts such as coffee table books atypical, moving away from a purely profit-based approach.

Do you have any further plans for this project?

The book in itself is special because it brings Victor Verhelst’s work back into the spotlight. The main goal was to translate Victor’s digital archive and sketches into a physical medium. In addition, the book constitutes the first publishing concept of our new collective Sidequest, an initiative in which we mainly want to reinvent a kind of neo-Arts and Crafts movement and in which book printing can once again take its place as an art form. We are open to releasing more in-house or collaborative publications in the future. We want to make coffee table books atypical again and move away from the traditional, predictable books that publishers often produce with the aim of commercial success.