Not just for shoe fans, a new book designed by Atlas and published by Lars Mueller Publishers, The Walking Society is a forty-year design history of Camper and tour de force of contemporary design.
A book by the tantalising triumvirate of Atlas design, Lars Mueller publishers and Camper shoes will be launched later this week at Art Basel. The Walking Society is a comprehensive history of the Mallorcan footwear brand Camper, designed by fellow Balearic-based art directors Astrid Stavro and Pablo Martin. True to the spirit of Camper, The Walking Society is an unconventional beast.
It is “conceived as a walk through the extensive archives of the company…” but also “unfurls a range of related themes, with essays covering subjects from the anatomy of the foot to the cultural history of the shoe.”
Stavro and Martin spent six months immersed the Camper archive, and rather than try to edit this into a convenient, book-formed package, they rolled with the chaos of handling an overwhelming volume of material by emulating the experience in the book’s design and structure. Their concept came from a line of Spanish poetry, translated as “walker, there is no path. A path is made by walking” (by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado).
Thus we have content designed to be “wandered through” - you are encouraged to begin and end your journey as a reader from wheresoever you choose. There are no chapter dividers, different editorial elements running in parallel and gorgeously large typographic quotes running unchecked across spreads.
Never designers to leave anything to chance or guesswork, Stavro and Martin made a point of getting under the skin of the Camper brand and its inner workings, interviewing employees and researching every element of the company’s forty-year history. There is something here for cultural historians, fashion and footwear aficionados and lovers of beautiful books.
The Walking Society, edited by Anniina Koivu, published by Lars Müller publishers, designed by Atlas.
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