Last year, the publishers of Infinite Jest asked readers to give it a new look for the book’s 20th anniversary in 2016. Here is the winning design, chosen by a panel that included Karen Green, Wallace’s widow, and Michael Pietsch, the original editor of IJ and current CEO of Hachette Book Group:
What do you think? It seems a little spare and straightforward for such a maximal and fragmented novel, and it definitely doesn’t stand with some of the other cool and interesting things happening in book cover design these days. Also was DFW a Mason or something?
You can read more about the design on the Infinite Jest tumblr page, and see a bunch of other possible designs at one of our favorite sites, Poor Yorkick Entertainment.
The new edition will be released on February 23.
-Michael Moats
I’m surprised by the type treatment. It’s so… plain. The image and the spareness and the whiteness seem well thought out, but then the type is like something from MS Paint.