During her B.F.A. in design Irma Boom interned at various prestigious offices including Studio Dumbar. Her work was often rejected as too experimental for firms accustomed to strict typographic conventions. At the same time her experimental books began attracting new interesting commissioners. In 1987–1988 Boom designed the official annual Dutch postage stamp books. She structured them in Japanese style binding and had text crossing multiple pages with printed folds and translucent paper. It was her first work where she also acted as image editor, which was unusual for the time. Boom received much hate mail, particularly from stamp collectors, who thought the books were controversial. However, such controversy brought her name onto the public stage and established her name as a designer.
