Väestösuojien rakentamisen historia ja käsikirja 1927–2016 / History & handbook of the Civil shelter building and design
Project management, concept and graphic design, typesetting, layout, table, chart and diagram design, photo adjustments and CMYK separations, and supervision of the printing process.
The author of this book, Pekka Rajajärvi, devoted his career to civil shelter construction and design regulations and is regarded as Finland’s leading authority in the field. This book was conceived as his legacy — a way to preserve and share his expertise with future generations working in the field. It is a truly unique publication.
The book is massive: 432 pages filled with tables, diagrams, charts and regulations. It also contains a large number of photographs and an extensive historical overview of civil shelter construction in Finland as well as internationally.
The publication contains many old photographs, documentary and spatial images taken by amateur photographers, as well as digitised images reproduced from historical documents and publications. Heterogeneous image material is always challenging to work with. The images required extensive processing, yet the varying quality still remains visible. In a historical publication, however, this can also be seen as part of its character. The book also contains an exceptionally large number of direct quotations from other publications and official documents. For clarity, these quotations were separated from the main text using a grey background.
Because of the large amount of text, we wanted the book to have a generous format and to avoid densely packed pages. There are wide margins and plenty of space for the elements to breathe. We decided to use bright pink and cyan accent colours as a counterbalance to the heavy regulatory content. The paper stock is bulky Galerie Art Volume 130 g. It feels excellent in the hand, is easy to read and pleasant to the eye, while also enabling high print quality.
The book was produced at a time when there was intense public debate in the Finnish Parliament about whether the mandatory construction of civil shelters in new buildings should be discontinued for cost reasons. Pekka strongly opposed this idea, and ultimately the requirement remained in place. Now, as the global situation has once again become more unstable, it is easy to see that this was the right decision.
A USB memory stick was produced alongside the book, containing all the regulations as PDF and Word documents. This publication is essential reading for anyone working in the field.
| Client | Pekka Rajajärvi |
| Size | Portrait 245 × 300 mm |
| Content | 432 pages |
| Texts | Pekka Rajajärvi |
| Paper | Galerie Art Volume 130 g |
| Binding | Sewn binding, hard cover with soft touch lamination |
