Photo from Round not Square
According to the founders of Round not Square, “turning pages is so 20th century!” And no, they don’t mean you should be scrolling away on your digital devices instead. Antonia Stolz and Ioan Brumer, former consultants tired of working long hours away from their two (soon-to-be three) kids, still believe in paper as a platform. The Franco-German couple just dreamt up a new format – books on scrolls (imagine rolled up wrapping paper embossed with texts and illustrations). And so Round not Square was born, a DIY publishing and printing house that exclusively prints carefully hand-crafted, custom-made paper rolls. These vary in length (7.5 to 30m), price (€27 to €40), and cover (ultrathin birch wood or book linen). Most are the result of a direct collaboration with artists and photographers, like one of our favourites, Fragile Beauty: a captivating 15m x 20cm pamphlet. Defending planet Earth in collaboration with Potsdam’s institute for sustainability, it features enlightening texts by climate experts (in English) and gorgeous satellite images. Other titles are new editions of pre-existing books, like award-winning cartoonist Katharina Greve’s Das Hochhaus (The High Rise, €30). The 56-page comic book was turned into a 20m scroll, a format that aptly replicates the 102 floors of the Berlin highrise depicted in the comic (did you catch it on our cover?). A perfect Christmas gift perhaps? Don’t miss your opportunity to grab one at the upcoming Holy Shit Shopping (Dec 8-9) or order online on their website.
