Comment

To coincide with Expo67, Tundra Books produced a series of mini-booklets / guides, each on a specific subject. This one is Art. There were 5 in total, the other titles being: Boutiques, Films, Habitat and Sculpture.

On May 5, 1967, Time Magazine reported “As a whole, Expo 67 can be considered a huge gallery of contemporary art.” With so much to see there was a risk of not seeing anything. So the usefulness of this little volume was important — and had no other goal than to help the art lover to find their way around.

The design of this series was handled by Heiner Hegemann, who not long after departed Canada to work at Chermayeff & Geismar in New York City. Each of the titles features a unique, abstract geometric composition in the lower 3/4 of the front cover with corresponding colour coded titling of the name of the publication in a consistent position. This edition features a 45º rotated square, inset with vertical lines of varying width and cropped within to create the illusion of a three dimensional concave / convex surface. Very simple, but very effective and striking. A miniature version is repeated on the back cover, set 2/3 of the way down on the right hand edge. The inside pages are printed in black and white, and are predominantly text only, with some associated imagery scattered throughout.

All Archives