Among the speakers at the Friends of St Bride Library Conference on 15 and 16 May is Karel Martens. He will show some of his (very) short movies and then engage in unpremeditated dialogue with Robin Kinross.

The faculty of architecture at the TU Delft commissioned Karel Martens to design booklets, flyers, stationery, and a poster for their series of six seminars this spring on ‘Architecture, Modernity and the Public Sphere’. Martens, working in collaboration with his daughter Aagje Martens, took up the implications of the title ‘Architectural Positions’, and the need to make flyers and booklets for the six occasions and for the series as a whole, but on a small budget. Just three printing plates were used for the colour printing, each containing two of the pieces; colour (cyan, magenta, yellow) was changed three times. In this way six different combinations or ‘positions’ were obtained. The black text is stable and clear. This patterning is enacted again in the website for the series. Not for the first time with this designer, the restrictions were embraced, with maximum effect.

This interview was recorded in London on 28 May 1999, and published in Slovenian translation in the cultural magazine Emzin (vol. 9, nos. 1–2). In making this transcription, we have made some clarifications and expansions of what was said.

Counterpunch is included in the exhibition ‘Mooi maar goed: graphic design in the Netherlands 1987—1998’ at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (16.01.99 to 28.02.99). This title (‘beautiful but good’) plays on the title of the ‘Goed maar mooi’ design exhibition organized by Willem Sandberg at the SM in 1949. Pieces by more than 100 designers are on display. All the usual suspects are there, and, as well as Fred Smeijers, two good friends of Hyphen Press are represented: Karel Martens (the series of standard telephone cards) and Martin Majoor (the national telephone books).

The second printing of the Karel Martens: printed matter sold out in Europe within a few months in 1997. Made in the summer of 1996 for the award of the Heineken Prize for Art to Karel Martens, it was a book of that particular moment. The moment has passed, and we won’t make a further reprint. Remaining copies may still be obtainable from US bookshops. In competition with around 680 other books from all over the world, the book was awarded the highest prize – the ‘Goldene Blätter’ – at the book-design exhibition at the Leipzig Book Fair in March 1998. There will be a reprise of this event at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.