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Design Category
Book design, 2004
Art directors
Nicholas Blechman, Christoph Niemann
Collection
(2005) 50 Books/50 Covers of 2004
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Our main design challenge was to present evil in an innocent context. Our second concern was how to organize approximately 200 random black and white ink drawings in a pleasing, nonrepetitive sequence.
Our approach and inspiration for the book was twofold: (1) beautifully reproduced gallery catalogs that capture the texture of the paper on which the original drawings were made and (2) the Holy Bible.
The book is wrapped in red plastic, packaged to resemble a bible or Mao’s Little Red Book. Inside, a tinted cream varnish covers the black drawings, giving a richness to the monochromatic images.
The first printing sold out in a few months, and the book is currently back-ordered. It will be reprinted in a second run of another 3,000 copies. It has been reviewed in a number of foreign publications and does well overseas, partly because it requires no translation (it’s purely visual).