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Design Category
Book design, 2004
Design firm
McSweeney’s (San Francisco, California)
Collection
(2005) 50 Books/50 Covers of 2004
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Issue 13 of our journal was dedicated to comics—a departure from our usual short stories. It called for a whole new approach. We wanted a jacket that would give a taste of the contents, but we are also sort of skeptical of dust jackets that are nothing more than a wrapper for an unadorned book. We wanted this jacket to do more. Also, the book needed a place to hold two freestanding mini-comics. The result was a very large sheet of comics, approximately 21 x 29 inches, echoing the funnies section of a newspaper. This sheet then folds around the book, almost like a cheap newspaper-wrapped gift. The jacket doubles up in a way that creates a pocket on either side, one for each little notebook. One hundred percent of the credit for this goes to the guest editor, Chris Ware.