Xmi Design was one of Irelands leading design firms, working on everything from branding and print, to packaging and interactive. Their client list was a who’s who of leading Irish and international firms in every sector from Finance to Real Estate. I was tasked with designing a showcase piece that could encapsulate the firm and its’ extensive portfolio of work. It was a follow up to a previously designed piece that had been produced 5 years earlier, so the only parameter was that it should sit well beside that.

As the primary designer on the piece, I decided that creating a book to the same dimensions would suffice in maintaining the desired brief, but that the form and content could and should be styled very differently. However, instead of moving towards a heavily styled and graphic piece, as is often the temptation on such projects, I chose to let the work speak for itself, and to build the design around that. I styled all of the projects and employed the talents of Neil MacDougald to photograph the 25 leading pieces over a 3 day photoshoot. I then photographed the remaining pieces, as well as all secondary shots. I kept the layout straightforward, utilising the grid to keep the piece interesting as the viewer moved from project to project.

The book itself was designed to be eye-catching and unique, starting with the cover which was finished with yellow suede (a stark contrast to the minimal white of the preceding book). I wanted to use the piece to highlight Xmi’s mastery of print production and restraint of design, thus the cover featured as its only embellishment an embossed xmi logo with silver foil for the type.

The interior was printed with 7 spot colours, CMYK, a spot grey, and two varnishes. Each project starting page had the clients name written in large gloss varnish behind the type, which was knocked out of the matte varnish put on every page to protect the ink from smudging or damage.