When Irma Boom makes a book, it’s not just a book but the book. The 50-year-old Dutch designer can spend years researching a project, and she insists on being a partner, not an employee. But her imperiousness is in the service of creating an object that, whether it’s an acclaimed monograph on Sheila Hicks or a 2,136-page history of the Dutch conglomerate SHV, couldn’t have been designed for anyone else. Print’s managing editor, Michael Silverberg, met with Boom at a Starbucks on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to talk about why she hates “clients,” can’t stand handicraft, and despises authority.

Interview with Print Magazine.