Last Futures by Douglas Murphy

Neil Donnelly’s cover for Douglas Murphy’s book Last Futures is a dramatic reference to legendary magazine The Whole Earth Catalog.

Verso’s art director, Andy Pressman:

Last Futures investigates radical ideas of utopia from the 1960s and 70s — geodesic domes, moon colonies, the automation of work, all acting as early shots against contemporary crises of ecology, urban planning, and precarity. For the cover, Neil wedged the iconic Whole Earth catalog inside the spectacle of the Montreal Biosphère (Buckminster Fuller’s contribution to the 1967 World Fair) as the latter bursts into flames. Sort of a dark story, really. A cataclysmic cover. Suits the book.

The interior of the book is set in Dwiggin’s classic Electra.