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We are lucky that Warren Lehrer didn’t heed his Queens College Art School drawing instructor’s advice that words and images operate in two different languages and hemispheres of the brain, so don’t combine them. Instead, Lehrer took from that his mission in life.
He doesn’t see himself as a designer or author in the traditional sense. But with his background in visual arts, words on the page have always married with the content. Steven Heller described Lehrer’s aptitude as performative design—creating stages for text to play.
And what gorgeous stages Jericho’s Daughter and Riveted in the Word are! The double release was serendipitous rather than planned. Both projects are based on short stories, have bifurcated formats (that dichotomy again), are led by visuals, and illuminate women whose lives have been torn apart and have to start over from scratch.
Our conversation was full of design geekery, like Do Si Do bindings, translating the reading experience into coding language, and storyboarding. There was also a rich discussion of the collaboration behind both books: Lehrer’s process with artist Sharon Horvath for Jericho’s Daughter and how words came together with music (composer Andrew Griffin) in the interface (designed by creative technologist Artemio Morales) in Riveted in the Word.
Both books are available for presale. Riveted in the Word is sold through the Apple App Store (searchable under ‘book apps’). You can purchase Jericho’s Daughter through Earsay Publishing.
There are a bunch of upcoming book launch events (more info on Warren Lehrer’s website). If you are in NYC, you are invited to the May 31 double book launch at the Center for Book Arts.
Register here to watch the entire discussion.
For more, listen to Debbie’s 2019 Design Matters interview with Warren Lehrer.