For a book offering solutions to the world's population problems, the authors provided a short summary and indicated the audience was "the reading public and professionals concerned with population, the environment and energy subjects".

The title offered an association that was difficult to ignore (the 'no vacancy' sign), but the original sub-title "Reversing the Population Bomb", was a competing graphic concept. After mentioning the problem to the publisher, I was told, "no bombs!" — defused, or otherwise and was asked to ignore the reference.

Research began by looking for crowds of people while hoping for a more inspired concept to strike. Predictably, it was difficult to find a crowd shot of mixed gender, class, and age groups that wouldn't become dated due to clothing or hairstyles.

next >