Gotteslob Prayer and Song Book
Its production took almost ten years, more than hundred people worked on the concept and realization, besides the people at the printing office. The publication has to last for at least forty years. Eight tons of red ink and roughly 3,000 tons of light-weight paper (40 grams) were needed to produce the 3.6 million copies (1,300 pages each) of Gotteslob, the new prayer and song book of the Catholic church in Germany and Austria.
Responsible for the design of Gotteslob was Matthias Bumiller from the design agency Finken & Bumiller in Stuttgart, Germany. In 2006 he started with the design of this magnum opus, which resulted in a positively received test version in the next year. Legibility had the highest priority and factors like low light in churches in combination with the inevitable relatively small point sizes were taken into account. After testing several typefaces, Frank E. Blokland’s DTL Documenta was selected.
2 Comments on “Gotteslob Prayer and Song Book”
Amazingly beautiful, understated typography that actually works. You could effortlessly teach entire design classes using only examples from this book. A very complex project mastered with skill and style: great job, I love it.
The DTL fonts look really great! I especially like Albertina and Documenta. (And all the others too of course)