Herzglut Books

Herzglut Books — also styled Herzglut Verlag — is the independent publishing imprint of the Swiss artist, illustrator and author Kai Jerzö, who works under the name KAI and previously under the pseudonym 'Jerzovskaja'. The imprint is associated with his personal studio and portfolio site illustration.world, through which his books, drawings, research and music are presented. Herzglut Books is a small, author-driven publishing venture rather than a large trade house: its catalogue is built around KAI's own illustrated and written works, produced bilingually and often tied to his long career as a commercial illustrator and art teacher. The imprint's best-documented title is '22 Football Heroes / 22 Fussballhelden', a re-edition of a cult miniature sticker album that KAI originally created in 1998 around the World Cup. The original album, drawn in a burst of youthful energy, gave the drawn footballer the grand label 'football hero' at a time when the phrase was considered presumptuous; the re-edition reproduces the 1998 album in full and adds the original internet diary and other autobiographical material. Herzglut Books published this bilingual English–German edition, with separate ISBNs for the English–German and German–English versions, and it is distributed to markets including the United Kingdom through a UK edition and a German-language bookshop link. As a brand, Herzglut Books sits at the intersection of independent publishing, illustration and football culture. Its output is characterised by KAI's hand-drawn aesthetic, bilingual presentation and a personal, essayistic tone — the same qualities that run through his writing on drawing as movement, language and meditation. The imprint's identity is closely bound to its founder's biography: born in 1971, trained as a teacher of arts and design, active from 1997 to 2023 as the illustrator and author 'Jerzovskaja', and since 2023 signing his work as 'KAI'. Because Herzglut Books is a one-person imprint, its scale is modest and its catalogue is curated rather than broad. It functions as the publishing arm of KAI's wider creative practice, which also includes research, music and teaching. Its titles are aimed at readers interested in illustration, football history and collecting culture, and at admirers of KAI's distinctive drawing style. The imprint's public face is the illustration.world website, which serves simultaneously as artist portfolio, bookshop gateway and archive of the 'Jerzovskaja' era.

Herzglut Books is the publishing imprint of Kai Jerzö, a Swiss artist, illustrator and author who was born in 1971 and who graduated in 1997 as a teacher of arts and design. From 1997 to 2023 he worked under the pseudonym 'Jerzovskaja' as an illustrator, author and service provider for clients of all sizes worldwide, while also teaching arts at various schools and serving as a school director. In 2023 he declared himself a free artist and began signing his work as 'KAI'. Herzglut Books grew out of this long creative practice as the vehicle for publishing his own books. The imprint's documented history centres on one title: '22 Football Heroes / 22 Fussballhelden'. The project began in 1998, when Jerzovskaja drew portraits of footballers and called them 'football heroes' — a term that, according to the publisher's own account, was then considered presumptuous, since heroes had traditionally been figures like Hercules, Siegfried and Odysseus, or the firefighter and the self-sacrificing mother. The original miniature sticker album was, in KAI's words, 'simply thrown together in a fit of youthful exuberance'. Over time the phrase 'football heroes' became commonplace, and KAI revisited the album that had started it. He rediscovered, expanded, annotated and newly edited the material, spending more time on the re-edition than on the original. Herzglut Books published the result as a bilingual English–German edition, with the original 1998 album reproduced in full, including its 28-page core, alongside the original internet diary and other tales of life and survival. The book is 108 pages, 15.2 x 0.7 x 22.9 cm, 218 g, and carries separate ISBNs for the English–German (978-3-03834-059-1) and German–English (978-3-03834-058-4) versions. A UK edition is sold through a dedicated link, and a German-language bookshop link serves German-speaking readers. Beyond this flagship title, Herzglut Books functions as the publishing arm of KAI's broader practice, which the illustration.world site presents as encompassing research, music and books. The imprint's identity is inseparable from its founder's biography and from his reflections on drawing as movement, language, sensuality and meditation — themes he has written about publicly, for example in a February 2023 essay on drawing. As a small independent publisher, Herzglut Books does not have the scale, catalogue breadth or corporate history of a major trade house; its significance lies in documenting and reissuing the work of a single, distinctive artist-author and in bringing a cult football-collecting artefact back into print in bilingual form.

• 2026

  Herzglut Books publishes the bilingual re-edition '22 Football Heroes / 22 Fussballhelden'.

• 2023

  Kai Jerzö declares himself a free artist and begins signing his work as 'KAI'.

• 1998

  The original '22 Football Heroes' miniature sticker album is created around the World Cup.

• 1997

  Kai Jerzö graduates as a teacher of arts and design and begins working under the pseudonym 'Jerzovskaja'.

• 1971

  Kai Jerzö, later founder of Herzglut Books, is born.

Independent, author-driven publishing imprint focused on bilingual illustrated books and football/collecting culture.

• 22 Football Heroes / 22 Fussballhelden

  Bilingual English–German re-edition of the 1998 cult miniature sticker album, 108 pages, 15.2 x 0.7 x 22.9 cm, 218 g, with the original album reproduced in full plus the original internet diary and other tales. ISBN-13 978-3-03834-059-1 (English–German) and 978-3-03834-058-4 (German–English).

1. 1KAI — Kai Jerzö — HERZGLUT — Jerzovskaja – WELCOME to the HERE and NOWillustration.world
2. 2KAI — About KAI – KAI — Kai Jerzö — HERZGLUT — Jerzovskajaillustration.world
3. 3KAI — About drawing – KAI — Kai Jerzö — HERZGLUT — Jerzovskajaillustration.world
4. 4Herzglut Bookswikidata.org