Book Design: a boy named jane

The design for this book cover was inspired by the DIY-feel and overly sentimental quality of the cover design for the 2009 reissue of Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust. This collection of poetry centers heavily on a relationship with a cow. The cow illustration featured on the cover of the book, designed by Matt, is a harbinger of what you’ll find inside of this poetry collection. The design of the cow is meant to feel hand-drawn and evocative of zine-art. The layout for the book includes a simple serif text design juxtaposed by the interpretive surrealist art created by Leah Fargo.

“It isn’t rare for me to use words as fodder for generating imagery—but I’d never read words which hit me quite like those in ‘a boy named jane.’ The simplicity of language is deceptive, as the more time you spend with each phrase, the deeper you can tread down a rabbit hole of existential musings (in the disguise of poetry about cows). Wright’s novel use of language inspired experimental uses of paint which attempt to interpret the heart of each poem as I perceived it. To spend time churning these words into paintings was a growth experiment in my own artistic process and a reflection of the exceptional thematic content of ‘a boy named jane.’
— Leah Fargo, artist

”I am glad that M. Wright has written a chapbook that focuses heavily on cows and organic material. I used to live beside a cow pasture. Whenever I would pass beside it and see cows walking around, eating, etc., I would always think to myself that the cows seemed mysterious and beautiful. The investigations of life, death, process, and organism containted in Wright’s chapbook are earnest and emotional. This is my favorite passage from ‘a boy named jane’: ‘in my dream / you were a cow / and you were me.’”
— Luis Neer, author of Extinction