Project brief: Book-jacket art for a comprehensive biography that charts the remarkable years of Gabriel García Márquez’s life leading up to the publication of his classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. The project brief called for the jacket art to convey the mood and spirit of magical realism, the literary genre for which the subject is best known.

Approach: The ultimate concept entailed an image-driven approach that did not depend upon an image of García Márquez. Printed on uncoated paper stock, the jacket marries the fantastic and literary components of the subject and the genre.

Effectiveness: The marriage of image and production value helped create a unique and relevant package for a biography without using the ordinary recipe of an image of the subject.

The photograph has a wonderful lushness and depth complemented by the understated typography.