Zhang Huan is a Chinese artist based in Shanghai and New York. ‘The Mountain is Still a Mountain’ documents Huan’s series of paintings made from ash. The works take the form of large-scale reproductions of photographs found in old photography books and the artist’s personal collection; the ash is collected from temples in and around Shanghai.

Echoing Huan’s source material, Kellenberger–White’s design takes its inspiration from a 1950s photography book, quoting its grid and captioning style in a new format. Eric Gill’s elegant Perpetua typeface is used for the opening essay text, which is printed on a heavy cream book paper.

An unusually thick and dark bookcloth was chosen to cover the publication – an idea that came from an old book without a dust jacket that we had found in a dusty, dimly lit bookshop. On it, the title was deeply embossed with black foil, evocative of a temple-like darkness.