Design Work Life: Cataloging Inspiration Daily

One Million is a unique book, con­ceived by New Yorker edi­tor Hendrik Hertzberg, whose aim was to make abstract num­bers more con­crete for the reader. Originally pub­lished in 1970, this new edi­tion was designed by New York-based Think Studio. Here is what Think’s John Clifford had to say about the project:

The plan of the book is sim­ple: two hun­dred pages; five thou­sand dots to a page. The result: one mil­lion dots. Notes that cor­re­spond to occa­sional num­bers point out unusual and infor­ma­tive his­tor­i­cal, polit­i­cal, anatom­i­cal and soci­o­log­i­cal infor­ma­tion that add up to help the con­cept hit home. Author and New Yorker edi­tor Hendrik Hertzberg wants the reader to actu­ally see, per­haps for the first time ever, exactly one mil­lion of some­thing. To keep the sim­ple design lively, the value of the dots were var­ied so they twin­kle and ani­mate a bit.