Book of Birds

typographic illustrations

The Book of Birds is an ongoing series of (block) prints. I started working on this alphabet of birds when I worked in a historical printmaking museum, drawing on both the tradition of illuminated manuscripts and printing technologies.

In designing this bird alphabet, I linked every letter with a bird species whose Dutch name starts with that letter; P is for Pauw, F is for Fuut, etcetera. The full Book of Birds is still in progress.

Illuminated manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells, were traditionally written and drawn by hand, with intricately illustrated initials. This way of working lost popularity due to developments in printing technologies and print culture, which I why I was interested in combining the two. I printed them as limited editions at the GR-ID museum.