Thomas Bernhard – Hab & Gut
You might be acquainted with Thomas Bernhard as one of Austria’s most outstanding authors of the 20th century and, certainly, its most infamous enfant terrible. Lesser known is Bernhard’s obsessive inclination to carefully select what he wore and what he surrounded himself with.
Thomas Bernhard – Hab & Gut, published by Vienna’s Brandstätter-Verlag, is dedicated to Bernhard’s “worldly goods”. Edited by artist André Heller, it is composed of photographs by Hertha Hurnaus and a series of essays reflecting on different aspects of Bernhard’s places, his belongings and his style.
The graphic design of the hardcover publication is the work of Capitale Design Studio, operating in Berlin and Vienna. Their colour scheme of black, white and green might be seen as a reference to the rural sites the book presents. Regarding the layout, the designers chose to emulate the Bernhardian manuscript style, with tight insertions and small margins.
The text for continuous reading is set in Farnham, Christian Schwartz’s crisp take on the Fleischman roman. Yet the typeface that shapes the book’s overall appeal is Dr, released by Production Type, an unwieldy geometric sans that seems to match perfectly with Bernhard’s public persona. Dr is prominently used in display sizes for headlines, quotes and introductions, as much as in smaller sizes for insertions and captions.
