Savoir Faire: Football: The Impossible Collection

0:03Today, we're here to talk about the savoir-faire behind football, the impossible collection. So Prosper, I follow your creative sparks over the years, and one that I love the most is when you start designing ultimate covers. You seem to have a lot of fun creating the sports one. What is your process? The process is always the same. It's to try to create an extraordinary product who immediately remember you what is a subject and an object where you want to live with anywhere in your house. It stands sculptural but also very tactile. You want to touch it. And when we did the wine, you touch a barrel of wine.

0:49And when we design the football, you touch the ball, which is the most important thing. It's not the jersey. It's really the ball. Yeah, because for this one, it really comes out of the clamshell in 3D, which is crazy. Yes, we have half of the ball coming out from the clamshell. So it's not easy. It's easy to design. It's not easy to produce. And you can deliver the promise because we need after that, you can ship that. anywhere in the world. So we need to create a special box with a form to have this half of ball in leather like made 30 years ago, exactly in the same shape. There's a big balance of proportions into that.

1:35And the height was a topic because you really push boundaries into the craftsmanship of it, right? It's what we try to do each time for each book, just to touch the right DNA for the subject. But my question is, when do you know when to stop? When are you happy with something? Never. You have to at some point, right? Never. If you ask me seriously if I am very happy with something, I will see only the mistake because each one could be better. Call that a perfectionist. It's a maladie. so what I see as well is that every time you design covers clamshells we always think of the potential series behind it am I right to say that yes because the reputation equals the repetition so we did absolutely when we do something to continue a long road it was already the challenge when we did the basketball, you know, and that it was to take the material and to the real material.

2:43And that was already fantastic. You did that for golf as well. Golf was the first one on the sport. And I really wanted to feel the golf. It's the texture of the ball, obviously, what everybody knows. Because if not, we would go on the titan and it was too heavy, too complicated. So we went on that and we created a mold with multiple of these bowls everywhere to create a crate. But if you ask me if I redo it exactly the same today, I will say yes. Ten years after, I will redesign exactly the same. So then you were happy with it? No, because I will do it more deeper. I will do it differently, etc.

3:29But the subject was the right DNA. Everyone is watching the World Cup. How important was it to launch this book now? If we arrived in September, we were crazy. Martin had the harder work to do, to choose the most important 100 moments. It's not just about design. You have to be very deep, to be specialized. It's acupuncture each time. You need to know everything. You cannot miss something, so you cannot be superficial. It's not a choice of the best 100 picture. It's the choice of the best 100 pictures for the best 100 moments. Martin, as Prosper said, you, along with the author, Roy Smith, you selected the 100 most important moments of the sport, right?

4:17What was the process into that selection? It was the author, but it was also the editor or scout, who is a fanatic about football, so it was fantastic to have her and to get all the information who can help not to make a mistake first. And second, so to work very closely with the photo editor and to capture all the images in each of the moments. I mean, the most important dates or events or important historical moments, we'll say. and to choose in each one the image who correspond the best. So that is a question of seeing hundreds and hundreds of images, to avoid to have something which is already déjà vu, to avoid to have something which is too flat, to avoid to try to say with one image several things.

5:17So all that, it's a real work. You've done a beautiful job into it. Merci. Prosper, can you explain what a gatefold is and why some images need to be shown in that way? The size of this book are huge because this collection is almost 10 kilos each one. So it's a big book. So it's a big size. It's beautiful. So a gatefold, it's when an image has to be seen like spectacular. A double page is big, but a gatefold is four times that. So you open it and it's like you are in a movie theater. You see that completely different. You have your TV and after you are in the movie theater. So you have an impact of a picture.

6:05That's really striking to see at this level and in the size of images. Looking at the layout, I love the Warhol painting of Pelé, facing a quote from him that you put at the beginning about how he was born to play football like Michelangelo was born to paint. So how do you choose how to pair the right quotes with the right images? That is all the work. It's to have a maximum of quotes first and to choose to select the ones who are the most important because they give emotion at the same times of information. And they are by people who mean something in the terms that you are treating. And then at the end, it can be obvious, I would say.

6:52you know, to adapt a quote to an image. Everything has a meaning and has to be chosen by the other. The quote by the photo and the photo by the quote. And they need to balance each other, right? Yes, absolutely. And strike an emotion. Yes, that's the point. That's the point. First, to have things who are impactful and attractive and meaningful at the same time. But yes, to give emotion, to drive you to something who tells you, I want more. Now, the beauty of this collection is we don't oblige you to read the text. The pictures and the quotes and the caption help you to really have the strength of the book.

7:37Yes, they bring you to the text. They bring you to read the text. Because it's the curiosity. You want to know more, you know, and to be able to understand what it is. And tell us about the color choice for this book, because I know that was subject for a debate for some time. The football book, it was at the start white because I wanted to use the black and white ball with the most iconic, what we don't use anymore today. We say it's a vintage one, but it was really the regular one. Today, they are full of colors because it's a rainbow. And logos and everything. The logos of everyone, etc. It's like a Formula One with all of the stickers on it.

8:16I wanted to have something very simple to understood and to don't be bored. For me a book like that as I say, you need to live with this book. It's an object. It's a sculpture. It's exactly what we did here. So I start with white and after conversation we decide to keep obviously the ball black and white and to use a green leather to wrap the ball. That's it. So all around the ball as the clamshell. Exactly. Okay, thank you. It's always inspiring to hear these stories and take a moment together to reflect. Merci. Merci.