To find such convictions, students and designers alike need a good argument for what they do. “To express yourself, you need to know why you are proposing the idea, then there is no question,” Boom says. She doesn’t discuss things like colour, because she believes that the content is more important. And she has thought deeply about the notion of a book. “I hate PDFs,” she says. “Books are physical objects. The architecture of a book is about size and proportion and the distribution of text,” she theorises.

If design is about solving problems, then Boom goes about things differently. “People come to me with an idea and think I will solve it, but really, I create a problem that I want to solve – that is really interesting, because finding a new question is more important than the answer,” she says.

The maker of extraordinary books – some of which don’t use ink or which fit in the palm of your hand – Boom says that patrons usually have a thought or idea they want to create with her. “I read all the books I make. Most designers don’t read and that’s a problem. I stay close to the projects I do. My books look different because of their content; it’s not the style. What I make is very specific,” she says, adding that she can never use an idea twice.

Boom recently produced a book for artist Olafur Eliasson. Already familiar with his work, she had met the artist a few times and felt that there was mutual admiration and trust between them. “We both respected each other’s work – that’s the highest level of collaboration,” she says.

Another book, titled James Jennifer Georgina (The Yellow Book), took some persuading by the Jennifer in the title for Boom to create – but even books can change things. After Jennifer had given birth to her daughter Georgina, James, her husband, started drinking. However, Jennifer discovered that if she travelled, leaving him with Georgina, he did not drink. So she stayed away as much as she could, sending thousands of postcards to Georgina, which became the basis of the book.

After nearly two years of asking, Boom finally agreed to meet Jennifer. “I had said no before, because I read some of the postcards and felt like the family psychiatrist,” she confesses. But a personal meeting gave Boom the spark she needed for the book. “I learned that the three of them never spoke, so I said that part of the book had to be 21 conversations between them, which are in the book. I made something else out of it because I felt there was more about this problem than just producing a book,” she explains.

For Boom, the methods of designing books are limitless. “There is always another way to make a chair – it’s all about sitting. I create books – what are the limits?” She asks. In 2013, Boom created the book No. 5 Culture Chanel. “You can’t see Chanel No. 5, but you can smell it, so I wanted to interpret this idea of not being visually present,” she explains. For Boom, it’s the ultimate book because there is no ink – which is usually necessary for communication within a book. Instead, it’s embossed, so the reader has to look carefully and touch the pages.

And she’s not afraid to admit her mistakes, either.

During the production of Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor, Boom had so many concerns that she forgot to put a title on the front. While the spine has the author’s name in bold, the title can only be found inside – which makes you think about not judging a book by its cover.

Her approach allows for the most unique of contents and Boom says each book starts differently. “I think so much about the content that I use two typefaces – one sans serif, which is customised to me, and one serif – to limit what I have to think about. But the book itself is always different,” she concludes