boundary 2: Volume 51
Buckle up for another boundary 2 deep dive! Volume 51 featured challenging concepts, which we turned into standout cover art for Duke University Press.
The first issue in Volume 51 focused on contributions from Hortense Spillers, a literary critic, scholar, professor, and activist.*
We originally sought to use images of paintings from Spillers’ most beloved artists: Faith Ringgold, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, or Elizabeth Catlett. Licensing limitations had us pivot to conceptual work based on her “Sending Language Into Battle” piece, making Hortense herself the focal topic. We were conscious of the fact that we could not mimic the styles of her noted artists and do them justice. Rather, we worked within our own style to create art that connected the issue topics.
Our image selections related to ideas and events in Spillers’ writing: Primarily, using language to motivate people to action—and showing that action playing out. While Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the most immediately recognizable figure on the cover, we also wanted to feature black female activists front and center. The words and work of black women are key topics in Spillers’ contributions to the issue—and undoubtedly influential in our society, besides.**
For the color scheme, we leaned on black and white photography for its powerful, unifying qualities. Small yellow highlights emphasize language and create a visual tieback to the importance of language.
Spillers’ thoughts and experiences are central to this issue and the focal essay, so it seemed right for “Sending Language Into Battle” to be set as a textural overlay. It’s subtle, but we like these kinds of meaningful Easter eggs.
In the end, we knew our design was successful when we received this reply from Spillers:
I am delighted to approve the art selection for the cover! In fact, I am deeply honored by the whole project. Thanks so much.
All the best,
Hortense
51:2 brought in new concepts and a new b2 editor, RA Judy. Judy’s art direction led us to remix images and concepts from the issue, focusing on an essay from Sora Han called “North County Jail,” and the relationship between surveillance and social order.
The images led us to reflect on how dark and disorienting it must have been to view the outside world through a narrow, light-blocking jail window—and what that must do to one's sanity. So, we set the tone stylistically similar to what the Han essay refers to as "zoetropic movements of the lights and sounds of mass incarceration," and “...how light, letters and lives pass through and thread layers of glass.” Our interpretation abstracted and distorted the original photography as a techy tie-in to another writing selected from the issue, Chris Mustazza’s “I Am Become Data: Lytle Shaw’s Narrowcast and the Era of Machine Listening.”
To achieve the disorienting, moody effect we wanted, we reflected images of North Co. jail and layered RGB-based light distortions for texture overtop. We also added a liquefied distortion effect to the very right of the front cover as a nod to the artwork of bent jail windows featured in the issue.
51:3 was conceptually dense, and we needed to pare it down to just a few ideas for the cover. Early on, Judy noted, “It seems to me that culture, catastrophe, and history [are] mediated by writing, or more precisely literature.”
That led us to rely on David Peace’s Tokyo Trilogy for thematic direction, as it supports those notions. We used an image of Nihonbashi, Tokyo, from the Allied Occupation Period to reference the era. Layered over that is the original movie poster art from the theatrical release of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, which originally began as a screenplay during that time period. Rashomon initially received both criticism and acclaim—but more importantly, it stood the test of time and is still globally revered as influential to culture, art, and film.
To hint at additional themes of metaphysics, history, and time, we included an image of a pendulum. And for a last bit of texture relating to writing and literature, we layered in an image of open books.
The closing issue, 51:4, was every bit as thematically dense as the three issues prior. From Judy’s comments on the issue’s overarching themes, we formed a list of high-level concepts to bring together in the cover art:
Polyphony and image collage
Confluence of colors, challenging whether a concept is perceived as “good” if it's depicted in light colors, or “bad” if set in dark colors
Text, an "archival" aspect
Bells and the idea of sense experience and communicating via sound, visuals, and vibration
Relationship to Lebanon, relevant to Fadi Bardawil’s reflections in the issue
It’s a broad list, and believe us when we say it goes even deeper and more academic than these summarized notes. But we’re not afraid of a design challenge! We reviewed many options for thematic visual representation and found the answer in photos from David’s travels in Lebanon. We layered all the concepts on our checklist—and the end result is textural, color-contrasting art that’s worth a closer look.
*Our short list of Spillers accomplishments is just the tip of the iceberg. At the very least, give her Wikipedia page a read to get a better idea of the breadth of her work.
**One of the women featured is Nekima Levy Armstrong, a social justice activist, lawyer, former professor—and more. Armstrong is incredibly vocal about racial injustice, which makes her a great fit for the topics covered in the issue.
See all our boundary 2 cover art. And be sure to drop us a line if you’re in need of thoughtful artwork for your next book cover.
