These overlooked objects preserve the art of book cover design, often created by unsung heroes of the craft.
The 288-page limited edition book includes images of 260 covers by designers including Fred Troller, Chermayeff & Geismar, Josef Albers, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, John and Mary Condon, Gilda Kuhlman, Rudolph de Harak, and Celestino Piatti, among many others.
To help catalog these largely forgotten works, Vernacular’s small research team created an index with all the information they could find on each title.
SECOND HAND, the second title from Vernacular, the independent publisher co-founded by Pentagram partner Andrea Trabucco-Campos and alum Martín Azambuja, is finally here!
“Second Hand” is a new book by Jesse Reed, co-founder of Order (and another Pentagram alum), that documents a forgotten history of graphic design as captured in his snapshots of book covers found in used bookshops around the world.
Rediscovered second-hand books are not just vessels of knowledge, but also windows into the past. These overlooked objects preserve the art of book cover design, often created by unsung heroes of the craft.
The book grew out of Jesse’s posts on Instagram where he shared photos of remarkable covers seen while he was browsing the stacks at various bookstores, from local NYC shops like Book Thug Nation, Human Relations and Aeon Bookstore, to spots in LA, Mexico and Korea.
The 288-page limited edition book includes images of 260 covers by designers including Fred Troller, Chermayeff & Geismar, Josef Albers, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, John and Mary Condon, Gilda Kuhlman, Rudolph de Harak, and Celestino Piatti, among many others. While the majority of the included titles were published in the 1960s and 1970s, the earliest dates back to 1946 and the most recent is 1994.
To help catalog these largely forgotten works, Vernacular’s small research team developed an extensive digital archive with all the information they could unearth on each title (including Designer, Author, Publisher & Imprint, Year, Edition and Bookstore name/location). This index provides a comprehensive database for these crucial yet often unrecognized fragments of design history. The full publicly accessible online archive is available at vernacular.is/secondhand.
Typography is set in Focal by Greg Gazdowicz of Commercial Type.
Order your copy at www.vernacular.is
Office
- New York
Partner
Project team
- Camila Pérez
- Ethan Pidgeon
Collaborators
- Martín Azambuja
- Jesse Reed
- Daniel Forero, photography
