Glen Adamson, the director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York commissioned us to produce an artifact for the Museum’s yearly premier fundraising gala. Glen’s interests lie parallel to the mission of the recently established Publication Studio at UT — namely, the production of finely crafted objects with an eye to history, but a contemporary articulation.

Our publication, ‘The Flipped Book,’ contains an essay by Glen that anecdotally describes the process of looking at things in unconventional ways, and the insights these perspectives bring to his work at the Museum. To reflect the ideas in the essay, we designed the book to be bound inside-out, with the cover as the centerfold. This simple formal gesture makes manifest the central premise of the essay, while also reframing the reader’s relationship to the book object. Re-folding the book about the spine makes the form of the pamphlet familiar again. The book is typeset in our typeface Playground, letterpress printed in a limited edition, and hand sewn bound.