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Design Category
Book design, 2003
Design firm
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, New York)
Collection
(2004) 50 Books/50 Covers of 2003
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My biggest challenge in designing the jacket for I Dream of Microwaves was to find an appropriately down-and-out image that expressed the main character’s darkly humorous existence. This was easier said than done!
My initial image search had me seeking high and low for the most prehistoric of food-zapping machines, but when my fairy design-godmother dropped John-Francis Bourke’s photograph in my lap, I knew my search was over.
The desperate image of a man (dead or alive?) with his head in the oven played much more to the irony of the title than any photograph of a single microwave oven (no matter how derelict) could have done.
“Made me chuckle and contemplate buying a microwave.” Archie Ferguson