MAY
13
2003
Where Have I Seen You Before?

So, not to downplay Dave Eggers' typographic talents or anything, but I find it curious that no one has ever compared the Might/McSweeney's typesetting and style to the record sleeve on Talking Heads' 1985 album, Little Creatures. I swear, it's like Dave laid out the whole thing himself, from his favorite typeface right down to the little interstitial drawings. The credit on the album says, "Design by M&Co., New York," which, of course, was Tibor Kalman's design company.
Now, Eggers and David Byrne know each other--McSweeney's published Byrne's new book, The New Sins in 2001. To quote Byrne in McSweeney's,

I am a fan of McSweeney's but didn't see anyone listed in the legal page as designer, so I emailed them directly and described my project and said I wanted to employ their designer, whoever it might be.

Turns out the McSweeney's Representative (M.R.)[Dave Eggers] does the design, and, in a weird coincidence, he also has a collection of 19th-century Bibles, which he counts as among his primary design inspirations. This was getting to be too good to be true.

Now, I'm as much a Talking Heads fan as I am a Might fan. And I like Dave Eggers, even though I have a pretty good feeling he doesn't like me. I am somewhat surprised that I've never heard anyone else mention this odd coincidence. Little Creatures is a good album, by the way. It's the one that has "And She Was" on it.

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