Left: a proposed cover for the CRB: size: 10.875"x13.75"
For many, many years I'd devoutly prayed for the opportunity of designing and illustrating a serious magazine--not some commercial rag, but an honest voice of a literary and politcal community. My prayers were answered early in 2002, when the publishers of the Claremont Review of Books adopted my plan for their magazine.
Claremont is a college town outside of LA: it includes some small colleges of distinction. It's also home to a think tank, the Claremont Institute, that started the Review in 1999. The writing was very good, but the look of the magazine was all wrong (in my humble opinion). It had a grossly commercial quality, which doesn't work well when a magazine is printed on newsprint, as was the case back then. My design for the cover shows the basic approach I favor: stymnetry, black and white illustration, typographic ornament, and a determination to be highbrow in a lowbrow age.