Bild by Claudio Pogo

BILD (literally “Picture”) is a German tabloid newspaper founded by Axel Springer in 1952 and described as mainly publishing ‘fear, tits and the weather report’ on its pages. With a daily circulation of almost four million copies, BILD has the widest reach of any German print publication. It is the best-selling European newspaper and has the sixteenth-largest circulation worldwide.

BILD has been described as “notorious for its mix of gossip, inflammatory language, and sensationalism”. Its nearest English-language stylistic and journalistic equivalent is often considered to be the British national newspaper The Sun, the second-highest-selling European tabloid newspaper.

Bild by Claudio Pogo is printed entirely on a Risograph—exactly the same printer which Axel Springer Verlag is using to print Bilds’ headlines to be distributed daily on newsstands all over Germany. A simple A–3 sheet printed in riso–black and crimson red became a starting point for Pogo in creating Bild. Over the last 7 years Claudio Pogo collected and erased all typography from over 500 front pages of the newspaper. Starting with the very first published issue from 1952, the book gathers 444 front–pages covering 50 years of the tabloid’s history. Claudio Pogo breaks the newspaper down to its pure visual language, leaving only photos and graphic elements on the pages.