PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Ubi Sunt is a fiction-slash-nonfiction COVID-times AI-infused diaristic novella, written by Blaise Agüera y Arcas, who works on machine learning at Google. The story immediately struck me as something Sebaldian, its mix of reference images and texts echoing W. G. Sebald, the German writer whose novels are often closer to non-fiction, written with both words and pictures.

Ubi Sunt’s timeframe is bookended by the protagonist’s first two Covid shots, with stylistic jumps into the past and forward into the future. To me this also initially recalled James Joyce’s infamous 1922 modernist novel Ulysses, set entirely in one day in Dublin with similar historical and contextual leaps.

I wanted to make a slightly obvious riff on the famous Ulysses first edition cover, which Joyce had described kind of like a graphic designer might:

“The colours of the binding (chosen by me) will be white letters on a blue field – the Greek flag though really of Bavarian origin and imported with the dynasty. Yet in a special way they symbolise the myth well – the white islands scattered over the sea.”

Given the Silicon Valley milieu of Ubi Sunt, I imagined a more Californian sun-bleached tone for the jacket. Less Aegean blue, more faded Mountain View teal.

The text is typeset in four typefaces to match different kinds of content in the book: LL Heymland (the calligraphic all caps cover and titles), Terza Reader (main serif prose text), Atlas Grotesk (sans serif text messages), and Atlas Typewriter (monospaced AI iterations).

BOOK INFORMATION

Trim Size: 5 ⅛ × 7 ¾ inches

Number of Pages: 128

Binding Method: Smyth-sewn exposed spine

Paper: Fedrigoni Woodstock Azzuro 110gsm, Antalis Invercote G 240gsm, Munken Print White 15 90gsm

Typefaces: LL Heymland (Yevgeniy Anfalov, Lineto, 2020), Atlas Grotesk and Atlas Typewriter (Susana Carvalho, Kai Bernau, Christian Schwartz, and Ilya Ruderman, Commercial Type, 2012), Terza Reader (Greg Gazdowicz, Commercial Type, 2021)

CREDIT INFORMATION

Creative Director: James Goggin

Art Director:

Book Designer: James Goggin

Jacket/Cover Designer: James Goggin

Illustrator:

Photographer:

Picture Editor: Blaise Agüera y Arcas, James Goggin

Production Director:

Production Coordinator:

Production Artist:

Other Credits:

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