Book covers From a Hypothetical Library.
Charlie Orr, a graphic designer, bon vivant, and old friend from my later New York-Brooklyn years, has just started a new site called The Hypothetical Library.
Charlie doesn’t need me to toot his horn, but I will. He designed a number of book covers for Soft Skull Press, my own publisher. One my favorites being the late Kenneth Koch’s book of comic poems The Art of the Possible. He also did the logo (for free, I might add) for Karaoke + Poetry = Fun, the occasional reading series I started back in the day.
In this project, Orr asks each writer “to provide flap copy for a book that they haven’t, won’t, but in theory could, write, and then I design a cover for it.”
First up is a cover for novelist Colum McCann, followed by poet-critic David Lehman, Lydia Millett, Thomas Kelly. Brian Evenson comes next.
“One of the frustrations of book cover design is that you are usually assigned projects and authors by a publisher,” Orr writes. “The competition is fierce, and assignments are not always exciting or ideal. Work is offered and you take it. The Hypothetical Library is my workaround. With this project I hope to collaborate with as many wonderful writers as I can get—freed from the constraints of various publishing houses, editors, and budgets.”
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This is extremely awesome.