No doubt, anyone with an interest in design has seen the name ‘éditions PAUMES’, making the editorial and blog rounds. ‘éditions PAUMES’ is a small and dynamic family run Japanese publishers, working in close contact with artists and designers in Europe on different editorial projects.
Although I was intrigued about these so called ‘gems’ of creative directories, PAUMES were producing seemingly fast and furiously with curious titles such as ‘San Francisco Kitchens’, ‘London’s Ateliers’, and ‘Paris Kitchens’, I was a bit confused.
So these were books filled with enticing images of the inside of people’s homes, a backstage pass into the best shops and cafes in the world, pages and pages of covetable design inspiration, flying off bookshelves around the internationally… but written entirely in Japanese???
So when two of the vast series landed on my desk this week ‘Stockholm Apartments’ and ‘Patisseries a Paris’ I couldn’t wait to share them with you!
The deal is; they are all written in Japanese. Headings, titles and anything essential is in English, so addresses for all Patisseries chronicled are in English too [phew!]. Everything else is in Japanese. I believe ‘éditions PAUMES’ has a strong connection to Europe and Paris so the books have a curious but delightful essence of French whimsy about them. The graphic Japanese text adds to the design of the book, and leaves me admiring the publishers for their faith in their instincts.
The universal imagery makes the books thoroughly covetable, and my first thought was that they were like looking at all the best inspiration blogs contained in a book.
One thing that surprised me was the size of these books. I was expecting another set of hefty coffee table books, that are great to look at but annoying to store, especially when there are so many in the collection. I was delighted to find that the books are petite novel sized bibles, that you could carry around if needed. Each arriving with a colourful paper band around them, and lovely quality paper jackets that slide off to reveal an alternative and graphic bookcover inside. The books are filled with tiny and special details, whimsical drawings, and clever layouts.
At £20 a book you might consider the price a little steep for such a small package, but unlike other books of its genre which also have more than a few in a series, each book is treated with individual attention. There is no continuity of headings and layout styles which can sometimes become stale in a series, each edition is its own work of art and has it’s own playful story to tell. Buy them all here.
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