"52 McG's is a collection of obituaries by the New York Times writer Robert McG. Thomas Jr. This was meant to be a type cover from the get go and is simply a take on the idea of your 'number' being up. I had originally submitted designs with found objects and tags with identifying numbers on them. John Fulbrook, who assigned the cover to me, was quite happy with this direction and with one in particular but just could not get the editors to accept the idea. They must have really wanted 'just a type cover' to have not given in to John's persistence. So moving along the same found object idea, I made a design that looks kind of like a temporary posting or billing that you might find at a downtown construction site."