A Jubilee

Today, the 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair has opened its gates. What more suitable prompt could there be to remind me of the article I wanted to write apropos the tenth anniversary of a little bookmaking feat of myself together with a bunch of brillant fellows?

Although I’ve had ample occasion already to get used to it, the juggling with large chunks of time still feels a bit daunting – but yes: on 11 November, it’ll be exactly a decade since I announced the release of a gorgeous little book named »Feinbaum«. It’s a collection of short stories that the web designer Dirk Hesse and I wrote in 2015. The stories revolve around web design and web business, but only very losely. We never wanted to write geek fiction. When, on a drab February evening, we were leaning against a bar table at our then favourite pub and exchanging anecdotes about odd clients, catastrophic projects and all kinds of absurdities, and when suddenly the book idea emerged from our lively discussion, it was all about doing something that the average web professional would never think of: to create something elegant and playful and self-ironic. And yes: to make a book – a real book for once, with a hard cover and an ISB number and ink on paper. Just for the fun of it.

And we did it. We wrote thirteen very different stories and even a poem in a six-month parforce run through several genres and styles. And the two outstanding artists Steffi Levers and Ralf Zeigermann and the excellent designer Judith Anna Rüther took what we’d written and added illustrations and layout, and eventually the whole fun thing came out as a seriously magnificent book.

Fast-forward the trifle of ten years.

Dirk keeps up writing and has published two veritable novels already. Steffi and I worked at the same office for some years and I never ceased to be awe-struck by the ease and swiftness with which she jots down her drawings. Ralf made the artwork for another two projects of mine and, by the way, has published four books of his own. And Judith has never stopped churning out magnificent book layouts and collecting design awards. Oh, and last but not least, there’s Hannes who made all the photos, portraying our neat little »Feinbaum« like a celebrated film star.

I wouldn’t trade any of them for an AI.