Page One: Great Expectations

For their entry, Winterhouse’s Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel created a narrow column of annotated text that serve to comment, among other things, upon the significance of the pocket in the book’s opening scene. Top right: Photography by Richard Hubert Smith

To celebrate Charles Dickens’ bicentennial, the London-based studio GraphicDesign& asked 70 designers to create a typographic interpretation of the first page of Great Expectations. Weighing in at a whopping 320 pages, the book features contributions from APFEL, Phil Baines, Tony Brook, Cartlidge Levene, Tony Chambers, William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand, Experimental Jetset, Fraser Muggeridge, KarlssonWilker, Frith Kerr, Robin Kinross, Ellen Lupton, Luke Hayman, Morag Myerscough, Erik Spiekermann and Sam Winston. Included, too, is a fascinating conversation between GraphicDesign& founders Lucienne Roberts and Rebecca Wright and Dickens expert Professor Robert Patten.

A launch event will take place on 10 May at 7:30 pm at the London Design Museum: speakers include Phil Baines, Violetta Boxill, Tony Chambers / Wallpaper, Fraser Muggeridge, and Morag Myerscough, as well as a number of the book’s contributing artists. Pre-order now for a £12.50 before May 13: the price reverts to £15 on May 14.