The design of publications by state bodies tends to be utilitarian and at best functional. In some cases more is required, as in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH), a vast project by the heritage service, Duchas, intended to record Ireland’s post-1700 built heritage, and to assess the significance of particular buildings and features.

Until now Duchas’s surveys were issued to local authority offices and in rather technical form. Now its new publications form part of a larger move towards glasnost.

They comprise publications on four counties — Fingal, south Co Dublin, Laois and Carlow — and consist of CD-Roms of local Ordnance Survey maps, searchable databases and illustrated books about the architectural heritage of the localities.

They are united by a strong design identity — each book and CD cover is illustrated by a monochrome photograph of a local structure, printed on matt paper. The designers have made a virtue of the bilingual text customary in government publications, the Irish and English versions printed from opposite ends, making the publication double-covered.

The photographs chosen for the two covers seem aimed at showing the breadth of structures that are defined as heritage — for example, the one for Fingal shows Howth Lighthouse (1817-18) on one cover, and the recently built Fingal County Hall on the other.

The publications are exemplary in presenting a large subject with clarity, gravitas and contemporary design mores.

In at least one case, however, visual appeal has taken precedence over accuracy — the image of Howth Lighthouse was reversed on the cover because the designers thought it looked better. In a project aimed at advancing glasnost it’s a needless and disappointing lapse.