Palm Desert

Palm Desert is the first book of photographs by Emigre magazine creator Rudy VanderLans. It is based on the music and lyrics of Los Angeles-based composer Van Dyke Parks and pays tribute to both Parks and Southern California. Somewhere between fact, fantasy and fiction, Palm Desert strives to echo Parks's creative approach of blending classical, historical, vernacular and environmental themes. The result is a curious mix of tribute, documentary photography, impressionism, and experimental music review.

The book also includes a bonus music CD containing the original track Palm Desert by Van Dyke Parks, as well as three adaptations by Emigre recording artists Itchy Pet, Honey Barbara, and Elliott Peter Earls. Playing time 21 minutes. 96 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 inches, 75 full color and duotone photographs, cloth cover with blind emboss, sewn and case bound, with a CD attached in the back.

Rudy VanderLans is the editor and designer of Emigre magazine, a quarterly journal dedicated to graphic design. Together with his wife, type designer Zuzana Licko, Emigre has won the 1994 Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design, the 1997 Gold Medal Award of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and the 1998 International Charles Nypels Award for Innovation in typography. Their work is in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design in New York, and the National Design Museum in London.