Steidl is by far our favourite publishing house. Starting life as a poster-printing company in the late 1970s, early 1980s by German-national Gerhard Steidl, the publisher has gone through countless amounts of reincarnations leading up to its position in the market today as one of the most respected and reknowned international publisher of photography and non-fiction books. They own the rights to some of our favourite photographers, including Juergen Teller, Karl Lagerfeld and Paolo Roversi. They also publish works of creative non fiction and essay commentary by nobel prize winners, poet laureates and some of the world's best contemporary thinkers. Steidl books are, in themselves, works of art.
We really want to see this documentary on Gerhard Steidl called "How to Make a Book with Steidl". We missed out on the screening on SBS earlier this year, so we'll have to hunt down a DVD copy (or hope for a repeat), if only to get a glimpse inside Steidl's famous office, filled with towering copies of proofs and manuscripts. We love peeking into the workspaces of other creatives - it's inspiring to see how people work - and this has got to be one of the more 'organised chaos' offices we've seen. But we like organised chaos, so that's okay!
Benah is inspired by: