Vitra: The Home Collection 2007/2008

The collaboration between Swiss furniture company Vitra and Cornel Windlin lasted only from 2004 to 2008 and “only” produced three catalogues (the first, Select/Arrange, in 2005; the second, The Home Collection 2007/2008, in 2007; and the third, The Home Collection 2008/2009, in 2008) plus one book, Projekt Vitra, also in 2007. And yet this short collaboration became a milestone for Swiss graphic design of the mid-2000s.

As the second of the three catalogues published between 2005 and 2008, The Home Collection 2007/2008 offers both a familiar approach and a subtle evolution from the highly acclaimed Select/Arrange released two years earlier. Gone is the two-volume format: this time the catalogue merges the presentation of the individual furniture pieces and their specs with a more contextual treatment through photographs and visual extracts from advertisements. The photographs feel a little less experimental here (though still very beautiful), but the intertwined sections — each handled with different papers, different printing methods and different content, from drawings to more abstract visual editing — make for an anything-but-boring catalogue, unusual in its form and in the reading experience it offers.

The Home Collection 2007/2008 was named one of the Most Beautiful Swiss Books of 2007 by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture (awarded in 2008). That same year (2007) Cornel Windlin received the first Swiss Grand Prix for Design.