AIGA Design Archives

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Design Category
Book design, 1999
Design firm
Greiner Design Associates (Chicago, Illinois)
Collection
(2000) 50 Books/50 Covers of 1999

Description

Adam’s Sketchbook grew out of an assignment to my graphic design class at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1990. I gave them a print of Dürer’s Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and asked them to use the inherent symbolism but bring it up to date by altering the image or context. Their solutions were inspiring and started me on a nine year writing and design odyssey. I was fascinated by the amount of information compressed into the first three chapters of Genesis. I decided to decompress it using Adam as a device to express my ideas about art, politics, science and nature. The challenge was to keep it all to 80 pages and two colors, which the budget called for.

Credits
Art director/designer: John Greiner
Illustrator: John Greiner
Photographers: Kenneth Short, David Bentley
Author: John Greiner
Trim size: 8 x 8 inches
Pages: 80
Quantity printed: 2,000
Compositor: Quark
Typefaces: Gill Sans, ITC Novarese
Printer: Arla Graphics
Paper: Crane’s Crest Natural 10016
Binder: Zonne Bindery
Binding method: Case bound
Endpapers: Crane’s Crest Natural 8016
Publisher/client: Ravenswood Editions