1959: The Year Everything Changed

Design by Susan Olinsky

What's special about 1959? According to author Fred Kaplan, it's when we shrugged off tradition and got our modern funk on: Miles Davis released Kind of Blue, Burroughs published Naked Lunch, the Guggenheim opened, and Searle petitioned the FDA for approval of the first birth control pill, among other things (history lesson courtesy of Publishers Weekly). Olinsky's minimal design respects the wealth of these achievements without resorting to the "photo quilt;" heck, I could have even done without the buildings.

Type geeks, chime in: what's the title typeface, and is it appropriate to the late '50s?

No Cause for Indictment: An Autopsy of Newark

Designer name to come

I first saw this a few months ago, when I did a little research on the Newark riots after reading Philip Roth's American Pastoral.


There's a lot going on here: I love the tension between the explosion of the city and the circle holding the text. The circle is more than just a circle: as the most rational geometric form, it reinforces the reasoned analysis that lies on top of (literally and figuratively) the explosive historic event. I haven't seen this in person yet, so I can't tell you what all of the text says. But if there's spot varnish on this cover we've got a real winner.

Dry Manhattan

Amazing to think Prohibition lasted 13 years. The pull-quote in the NY Times review claims that there were 15,000 saloons at the start of Prohibition in 1920 and 32,000 just a few years later. Wow.


This cover strikes me as a little gimmicky, especially viewed next to the excellent photo accompanying the article in the Times: