This design system is a response to clichéd “radical” designs, often seen in advertising, which rely on illustrative gestures like ripped paper and aggressive typography. We wanted to show restraint; if the titles in this series are radical, it’s for the ideas contained within, not for the packaging. But we didn’t want to reject design as a vehicle for meaning—we weren’t interested in stripping away every design element in search of a hypothetical “pure” cover, devoid of connotation or meaning. So we developed an illustrative system that could reflect each book’s content.

Some of the illustrations are literal and easily deciphered. Others are abstract representations of slippery ideas. Most book covers provide context, whether historical or atmospheric, but this system rarely does. If anything, it unclarifies—it turns the polemic into the poetic.