Jefferson Hack Launches Book to Hack the System

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Jefferson Hack is a renowned editorial director and publisher, having successfully founded alternative magazines Dazed, AnOther Magazine and Nowness.

He’s now adding another string to his bow with the launch of a new book that talks about the importance of defying convention, touching on cultural resistance in the digital age and why we should retain an independent state of mind.

We Can't Do This Alone embraces and recreates Hack’s way of thinking through a series of articles and images inspired by quotes from his career, including contributions from actress Tilda Swinton, photographer Rankin and singer Björk.

Together with New York-based agency Johannes Leonardo’s founder and creative director, Ferdinando Verderi - who was the art director, designer and co-editor on the project – the pair decided that the book’s defining USP would be its 5,000 different cover offering. Limited edition slogan t-shirts bearing 'A Cultural Resistance Movement' and 'If You Can't Afford It, Steal It' are also available in conjunction with the book’s launch.

Verderi talks to shots about Hack’s radically-rebellious message, capturing punk positivism and inspiring the next generation to rise up, reinvent itself and collaborate.

How did you get involved in the project?

Jefferson invited me into this project long before we started working on it, more than two years ago. When the book project started, we intentionally kept the thinking at a very theoretical level for a long time before we even started to discuss the content and the design. We always knew we wanted this project to defy the typical idea of a monographic retrospective, so our early exploration was aimed at how to make sure this book would not just be about the past, but would actually feel alive. 

Jefferson Hack has a very specific style which comes across in all the magazines that he has founded. What was the brief that you were given and how did you approach it to ensure that it met his identity?

In a way, the brief was written by ourselves, to ourselves - the whole process has been a dialogue. 

When we started working on the book, I was already very familiar with Jefferson's creative approach and I was much more interested in capturing and representing a thinking style vs. a visual one. I really wanted the book to represent his thinking process, which is constantly creating associations between different ideas, always pushing boundaries, challenging what can be done. Always interested in asking questions vs. giving answers. The 5000 different covers, which seemed impossible to everyone, is just one example of how design tried to express this way of thinking. 

How helpful do you think it was to approach the brief from an agency’s point of view?

Jefferson and I never approached this project with any commercial consideration in mind. Agency briefs are expected to solve a business problem. In this case, we had the opposite preoccupation. We wanted to challenge a business expectation, by turning a retrospective project about the past of a single author into a manifesto about the future of a new generation. That being said, the whole process was quite rigorous and we did apply a lot of logic to the thinking, dedicating a lot of time distilling the purpose of the project before we even touched on its form. 

Was there anything that particularly influenced or inspired your art direction and the book’s design?

The design was inspired by the idea that this book would serve as a manifesto for a new generation who endorses - using Jefferson words - a sense of 'punk positivism.' The rhythm of the book is circular, and it intentionally opens and closes on original content leaving the archival content in the middle. I wanted to create a context of purity and newness around the archival content, and one of craft and error around the new original content. I wanted the past to feel new and sharp, and for the new to feel imperfect and inspired by the idea of past.

Why did you decide to create 5,000 different covers and why did you decide to make the book a limited edition?

5,000 felt like the right amount of copies, and instantly we discussed methods to make each of them unique. The content of the book is quite personal, so it was important to find an idea that would think of the audience as individuals and talk to them one by one, vs. just as a non-descriptive community. We engaged Kodak while they were experimenting with new printing techniques, and after a long process of research with their team, we managed to use their machine in a way that had never been used before, and for an industry in which this science had never been presented. This way we made each of the 5,000 covers completely different, each of them numbered. 

What was the process for deciding which artworks would feature as part of the 5,000 covers?

The covers are made of all the spreads of the book crashed onto each-other in always different ways. We wanted the cover -- usually the place to hero the most iconic image -- to become the place in which all the content is irreverently challenged and questioned. We created an anti-cover that needed to represent our disbelief in a form of autobiography, which only heroes past achievements, in favour of one that uses the past as a canvas for a new generation to create their future on.

The book deals with underground culture and alternative media. How would you define alternative media and how relevant do you think it is today?

Jefferson is independent media. Independence today is an alternative form of being. Independence is rare because it comes as a cost, but a principle is not a principle unless it costs you something. An independent state of mind is the only relevant one when it comes to mapping any form of future. The message of the book is clear and it inspires a new generation to recognise, endorse and nourish their own creative independence. We Can't Do This Alone, the title of the book, means that independence, tomorrow, needs to become a collective, generational message.