AIGA Design Archives

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Design Category
Book design, 2002
Design firm
Doyle Partners (New York, New York)
Collection
(2003) 50 Books/50 Covers of 2002

Description

Before deodorants were de rigeur, ladies used to carry around Queen Anne’s Pocket Melons—not to hurl, but because their perfume overpowered other, um, challenges. And this is only one fact about melons that you didn’t know. In this book, Victor Schrager’s masterful still lifes portray 100 varieties of this overlooked fruit. Our design job was to aspire to books of handsome botanical plates, and then let the photographs do the rest of the seductive work. Small-scaled, yet with a formal approach, this book tells you more than you might ever want to know about melons, including how to grow them and how to buy them in a market, and introduces the idea of seed saving, the holy grail of heirloom growers. And you don’t even have to like melons to like this book—Victor’s remarkable photographs turn Amy’s growing habits into art.

Credits
Creative director: Stephen Doyle
Designer: Liz Ahrens
Photographer: Victor Schrager
Production director: Nancy Murray
Trim size: 7 x 9 1/2 inches
Pages: 176
Quantity printed: 15,000
Typefaces: Antique Olive, Craw Modern, News Gothic, Ribbon, Rockwell, Scala Wood Type Ornaments
Printer: Graphicom, Inc.
Binding method: Hardcover, sewn
Author: Amy Goldman
Editors: Ann Bramson, Deborah Weiss-Geline
Publisher: Artisan