Jost Hochuli, author of Designing books and Detail in typography, is responsible for an exhibition of the remarkable book production of his home town of St Gallen. While his own work is also shown, Hochuli insists that ‘Buchgestaltung in St Gallen’ is an exhibition of, as he puts it, work by his close friends Rudolf Hostettler and Max Koller, by his former students and other colleagues. ‘Buchgestaltung in St Gallen’ opened in April at the book fair in Geneva, but will be shown in St Gallen itself from 7 to 29 June 2008.

On the occasion of this exhibition an interview with Jost Hochuli was published in St Gallen’s daily newspaper Tagblatt . Here again is evidence for Jost Hochuli’s conviction that book design is not concerned with beautiful book-objects, but rather it is about making useful tools for reading. Or, as Hochuli stated it even more precisely, in the conversation with Hans Peter Willberg included in our almanack for 2008:

My ideal is the perfect tool for reading, or – depending on the type of book – tool for looking or tool for reading and looking.