Plagues Hit NYC

I set out to create a picture book on the Makkos, with a fresh twist. I chose to portray the Makkos as though they took place in modern-day NYC. Each spread looks like it was torn out of an old-style newspaper; every newspaper page was custom-drawn so no two pages look alike. The title and body fonts were carefully chosen to balance ancient Egypt with modern-day NYC. Each Makkah is portrayed in a different location in NYC, and each page spread shows the original scene – and the transformed scene after the makkah hit (the closer you look, the more details you'll see in each scene). Underneath is a headline, showing where in NYC the picture was taken, and how the makkah may be described in a modern-day newspaper. The newspaper article is a few short paragraphs about the actual makkah itself, with the pesukim listed in the byline for anyone who wants to delve deeper.

The book cover design was a challenge – I wanted it to look both Egyptian and New Yorkian, with a nod to the newspaper design of the inside pages. To combine these elements, I chose to place the Statue of Liberty near pyramids in the Egyptian desert. I then superimposed a newspaper page over the Egyptian sky.