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Design Category
Book design, 1999
Design firm
Carey George Dean Martin Inc. (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
Collection
(2000) 50 Books/50 Covers of 1999
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Capital Crimes examines the sources of crime, from street violence to corporate crime, and attributes them to greed, fueled by global capitalism. Instead of the aggressive and gritty approach that is common for books dealing with crime, the direction was to design a cover that is very sleek and seductive, which demonstrates the book’s premise. The shiny, metallic silver cover and its bright yellow band is used to attract attention. On closer examination, however, the yellow band is the tape used by police to fence off crime scenes. In this case, it surrounds a less obvious scene of crime—an office tower that symbolizes the elite economic interests that determine criminal activity.