Rachel Whiteread

British Pavilion XLVII Venice Biennale

British Council

1997   |  279 × 246mm   |  72pp

The Business of Printing. Liasing with printers has always been an important part of the design process. I worked for a printing company and for a publisher before setting up as a designer and so my approach has always been grounded in the practicalities and cost of production. When I have found a printer who is able to operate consistently in the golden triangle where quality, price and service meet, I have tended to stick to them. For a decade around the turn of the century BAS Printers in Hampshire, the family business of the Gumns, were my supplier of choice. They printed this catalogue for the British Pavilion at the 1997 Venice Biennale. Eventually, we had collaborated on so many publications that we jointly published a promotional Catalogue of Catalogues.

BAS were succeded, as the currency exchange rate determined, by three Belgian firms. First Snoeck, Decaju & Zoon in Ghent; then Die Keure in Bruges; and then my current preferred supplier, Albe De Coker of Antwerp. These three Belgian firms have had a number of things in common: they had rather splendid names; they too were family businesses; and most importantly, they had excellent people in the all-important role of 'order clerk', as it was called when I first started work in 1981, before the job was blandly re-titled 'account executive'. Thank you, Wouter Rummens and Tom Maes.