Stranger
Fruit

DESIGN DIRECTION AND CONCEPT — CALEB CAIN MARCUS
PUBLISHER — MONOLITH EDITIONS
ARTIST — JON HENRY
WRITER — SABRINA GREIG

Stranger Fruit is a photo book
in response to the murders of 
Black Men by the police.

When embarking on this book we were given two criteria: the text should have equal importance to the photographs and the cover had to be gold and purple.

We then sought ways to include the gold as a sculptural element and a design refrence to the religious paintings the photographs evoke. Many old bibles we researched had gold gilded edges and ocasionaly contained drawings on their foredge. We created a modern interpretation of these foredge drawings that revelas the words from the 1939 Billy Holiday song Strange Fruit that inspired the title. We based the proportions on the Gutenberg Bible, the earliest mass produced book and customized the F on the cover’s typography. 

The second edition is
distinguished by a purple foredge.

Stranger Fruit sold out in six weeks, and went into a second edition, with solo shows at Abakus Projects, UCR Arts and Photographic Center Northwest, and press including, the Boston Globe, Hyperallergic, Dazed UK, the Gaudian and selected as one of the best photo books of the year by El Pais.

MOMA, the Metroplitian Museum of Art and the Getty Museum have collected Stranger Fruit.

Recognition—
Art Directors Club New York, Silver Cube
AIGA 50 books | 50 covers, 50 Books Winner
Red Dot Design Award, Winner
Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards, Shortlist