The cover illustration for the third edition of Seeing & Writing was created by an artist named Peter Arkle, and commissioned by Bedford/St. Martin's specifically for this project. A selection of his illustrations on the themes of Seeing & Writing also appear throughout the book. To view a gallery of these images, click on the thumbnails below.

Peter Arkle writes and illustrates a regular column, "The Stalker," for Print magazine, draws hairs for Bumble and Bumble, portraits for Travel and Leisure, publishes a newspaper containing illustrated stories of everyday life, and works freelance for a variety of advertising and editorial clients. He lives in New York City. You can visit his Web site at www.peterarkle.com.

During an interview with the authors, Peter Arkle remarked that every time he looks at the cover illustration he thinks "of something else that I should have probably added. I can also imagine zooming into it. I could redraw a detail of it, and then another million labels appear (we could go on and on until there's only one label, which is the meaning of life)." Read full interview here >> Zoom into this detail from the cover which shows Peter Arkle's illustration without his handwritten commentary. Explore your own interpretations of the illustration to create a new visual text. You can either print the image to alter it by hand, or open the image using an editing program to alter it digitally. What alternate labels would you write for the people and objects Peter Arkle envisioned here, and how do they change the overall effect(s) of the piece? >> Download the cover detail (.pdf)

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