Lisa Tremaine, Book Designer Extraordinaire!

The book designer at The University of Texas Press responsible for the unique look and feel of Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucination of the "Mexican" in America is a genius named Lisa Tremaine. Like some graphic fusion of Man Ray, David Siqueiros, and Meret Oppenheim, this gifted semiotic diva took up the challenge of my "mess" of a manuscript and came up with a book that deserves to win design awards--of course, some might say I am biased in this regard, to which I respond hush!

In graduate school Avital Ronell's Telephone Book set the standard for progressive, visionary bookmaking from the academy. With Tremaine's work on Tex[t]-Mex, perhaps said volume has earned the right to sit alongside that amazing project.

UTPress recently put up a gallery that hightlights the 16-page color signature inside the hardback and paperback editions of Tex[t]-Mex. A sample, by artist Guillermo Nericcio García appears above.