See the City

See the City is a transformation of Matteo Pericoli’s beautiful book Manhattan Unfurled into a children’s book. We wanted to design a book that inspires young readers to shift their perspective, to draw what they see, and to see the world like an artist.

In See the City, Matteo Pericoli’s drawing is bound into two sections (East Side and West Side) in an unusual Z format. We chose this binding to re-create the experience of circling the unique island of Manhattan in the format of a book—the way the author did as he drew the illustration. The casewrap design is bold, simple and bright in order to appeal to children but also keeps within the elegant realm of Matteo’s drawings. The title type echoes the child’s playful view of the city in a lowercase version of the font used in the adult version. We chose primary colors to introduce the children to the basic colors of art—red on the side opening to the city’s East Side, blue on the side opening to the city’s West Side—with Matteo’s gorgeous line drawing running in bright yellow across both covers. Inside, the drawings are accompanied by simple text and hand-drawn labels, not only to demonstrate how the artist came to create his insightful journey, but also to enable young readers to understand how much perspective can alter the way the world appears.