The External Combustion Engine

Futurepoem is a not-for-profit publishing collaborative dedicated to presenting innovative contemporary poetry, prose and multigenre works of literature by both emerging and underrepresented authors.
The design challenge for this book was twofold. Overall, we want the whole press to seem like a family, where the quality of a Futurepoem book distinguishes the press in the marketplace. But we also want the book to uniquely encapsulate the spirit of the poet’s work. This makes the process collaborative between designer, poet and publisher.
For this book, initial conversations and a close reading of the manuscript determined the atmosphere and tone that was carried through and eventually reflected in the final iteration. We printed on high-quality recycled stock and used flapped covers to maintain a full image cover, front to back. The impact of design on Futurepoem has helped to establish it as an exciting and credible new press with both its reading audience and arts funding organizations.