I am pleased to finally anounce a Book I illustrated for Duden Verlag, a publisher which is famous for its dictionary of the German language, the »Duden«, as the predominant resource for German orthography, but also publishes other books with language-related topics. For Rita Mielke’s »Du Hast Das Wort, Schätzchen!« (»You have the word, darling!«), which tells 100 exciting and often surprising stories around the German language in a smart, warm and humorous way, I worked in a new, bichrome and simplified style, to resemble book illustrations of the Sixties.

First of all, I developed this fresh Sixties style for illustrations, graphics and design, plus the character of the little lady, who leads through the book. Based on this, I illustrated 12 of the 100 stories, a small vignette for the titling, 6 simple elements for the different chapters of the book and also its cover (graphics/bubble: Groothuis) – and I am very happy how beautiful Selina Bauer (layout) and Sigrid Hecker (typeset) have realised this whole book!

»This lovingly illustrated book presents 100 exciting questions on the subject of language – and provides informative, surprising and sometimes quirky answers. The spectrum ranges from etymology, speech, language phenomena and language rules to the evolution of language. You get to know who invented the question tag, what “Tabu” and “Kanake” have in common or why the British don’t use a “Beamer”. Let yourself get charmed by the German language!«

Du hast das Wort, Schätzchen!
100 charmante Geschichten rund um die Sprache
Rita Mielke | Mit Illustrationen von Iris Luckhaus
192 Seiten | 12,6 x 19,0 cm | Broschur | Duden Verlag
9,99 € (D) | ISBN 978-3-411-75698-8 | VÖ: 1.3.2017

The book will be published on March 1st, 2017; it is already listed and can be ordered! If you’d like to find out more, please look at the Duden Verlag’s spring preview (on page 7!) or at the publisher’s website.

Many thanks to Juliane von Laffert for the truly wonderful cooperation!

Der Beitrag First Preview | “Du hast Das Wort, Schätzchen!” erschien zuerst auf Iris Luckhaus.