typohypergraphicobject

p r o t a g o n i s t

p r o t a g o n i s t

about the book

typohypergraphicobject is a teachable agenda for conscious designing.

Written, edited, designed, and published by James Langdon.

With contributions from
Brad Haylock
Bryony Quinn
Caleb Klaces and Daisy Hildyard
Gilbert Again with Michael Fowler
Sam Rolfes
Susanne Kriemann

against economical thinking

revitalising arcane knowledge

enthralled by sublime digital graphics

its heart beating faster in the presence of commodity

on the cusp of poetry and wastefulness

admitting the conundrum of its own production

reconsidering technologically entrenched practices

when there are no innocent materials

and no more whitespace

The book’s cover was overprinted on March 13, 2025, at Die Keure in Bruges, Belgium. It shows one of the book’s protagonists, the Banasura Chilappan, whose decreasing global population is currently estimated to be as low as 530 individuals, endemic to southwest India. This number determines the edition size of the book: each copy represents one bird. Art by Sam Rolfes.

The book’s cover was overprinted on March 13, 2025, at Die Keure in Bruges, Belgium. It shows one of the book’s protagonists, the Banasura Chilappan, whose decreasing global population is currently estimated to be as low as 530 individuals, endemic to southwest India. This number determines the edition size of the book: each copy represents one bird. Art by Sam Rolfes.

design and production

typohypergraphicobject is overprinted on make-ready sheets and leftovers from four other books. It is produced with the technical co-operation of Druckerei Die Keure, Bruges; Spreedruck, Berlin; DZA, Altenburg; Kajsa Ståhl, London; OK-RM, London; and Stina Gromark, Stinsensqueeze, Paris.

Overprinted sheets obscuring content from A Meaningful Order by OK-RM in preparation for further overprinting. DZA, December 2024. Final production takes place in April 2025.

Overprinted sheets obscuring content from A Meaningful Order by OK-RM in preparation for further overprinting. DZA, December 2024. Final production takes place in April 2025.

pre-sale

250 copies of typohypergraphicobject are available for pre-sale. Pre-sale is open now until Saturday 3 May 2025, 10am CET. Pre-sale buyers are enabling the production of the book. As an expression of gratitude, all pre-sales come with a new, 20-page, offset-printed, bootleg English translation of Frederic Vester’s extraordinary ‘window-picture book’ What a Bird is Worth (1983).

Buy one pre-sale book for 30 euro
hand-finished cover, no shipping, social distribution

Buy two pre-sale books for 60 euro
for group-buying, shipping can be arranged

Buy three pre-sale books for 90 euro
for group-buying, for resale, shipping can be arranged

After the pre-sale, regular copies (without the What a Bird is Worth bootleg) will be available through this website and at book fairs (to be announced), for 30 euro.

What a Bird is Worth visualises its protagonist’s interrelatedness with 59 die-cut apertures.

What a Bird is Worth visualises its protagonist’s interrelatedness with 59 die-cut apertures.

The book, by notable twentieth-century German ecologist and systems thinker Frederic Vester, performs a financialised analysis of a bird and its network. Vester shows how a single living thing — deeply interdependent with its environment — has a value that even crass, economical thinking can capture.

The book, by notable twentieth-century German ecologist and systems thinker Frederic Vester, performs a financialised analysis of a bird and its network. Vester shows how a single living thing — deeply interdependent with its environment — has a value that even crass, economical thinking can capture.

launch

typohypergraphicobject launches at the Gent Art Book Fair (2–4 May 2025) in an edition of 530 copies. Pre-sale copies ordered through this website can be collected at the fair and at other locations (see schedule and distribution below).

schedule and distribution

I am asking for your patience and cooperation with delivery. You will receive your book. Not quickly and frictionlessly, but memorably, and with narrative.

typohypergraphicobject employs a social distribution model. Individual copies are consciously not being made available to order for postal delivery. If you purchase an individual copy through this website, I will contact you to offer some collection possibilities depending on your location. If none of these initial options are suitable I will invite you to a Signal channel where we can coordinate with other buyers.

I encourage you to organise a group-buy with friends and colleagues. I could not find a suitable service providing group-buy infrastructure, but there are many ways for one buyer to easily request reimbursement from others. If you place a group-buy order I offer you some extras, see below.

After the 2025 Gent Art Book Fair, the following publishers and organisations have agreed to have copies available for collection, with more to be confirmed:

Empire Books (Paris)
InOtherWords (London)
Werkplaats Typografie (Arnhem)
Trust (Berlin)
LOOM (Berlin)

Collection times must be arranged with me through Signal or email.

extras

For those able to place group-buy orders, and for cases where it takes longer than you would want for us to arrange a delivery or collection, I have designed extra pieces of ephemera using byproducts of the production process and other leftover printed sheets. Swag. I will include a selection of extras with every group-buy order and any order whose fulfilment takes more than two weeks to arrange.

thank you

With artistic, editorial, and practical support from Vanessa Boni and Farrah Langdon, Andre Fuchs, Geoffrey Mak, Johanna Schäfer, Laurent Benner, Simon Knebl, Stuart Whipps, and Tim Bartel.

The cuckoo, from Thomas Bewick’s A History of British Birds, 1797.

The cuckoo, from Thomas Bewick’s A History of British Birds, 1797.