Under Carson's direction, Chip Kidd, Archie Ferguson, Barbara de Wilde, and others have transformed bookstore shelves across the country. Jackets incorporating layers of transparent materials have approached the casebound book as a concrete, physical artifact, not simply as a neutral solid to be cheerfully concealed by a paper wrapper. Coffee stains and strands of hair celebrate the book as an intimate object of use, while jackets combining sinister fragments of found images have yielded a literary approach to design where pictures become poetic phrases. [back] © Copyright 1996 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum

Stardust, 7-Eleven, Route 57, A & W, and So Forth Book jacket, 1992, offset lithograph Designer and art director: Carol Devine Carson Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York Collection Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Gift of Steven Heller The American Replacement of Nature Book jacket, 1991, offset lithograph Designers: Chip Kidd and Barbara de Wilde Art director: Peter R. Kruzan Publisher: Currency/Doubleday, New York Collection Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Gift of Steven Heller The History of Luminous Motion Book, 1989, offset lithograph Designer: Barbara de Wilde Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York