11. NUMBER 17
Emily Oberman and Bonnie Siegler of Number 17, waiting in an airport security line, glimpsed an X-ray image of a fellow traveler’s bag. Instantly, they knew the image—with slight modifications—would be the fall 2004 cover of Colors, which focuses on drugs. “We wanted something that would be nonjudgmental,” says Oberman. “And we realized,” tag-teams Siegler, “that this was a way we could show drugs as visually arresting and a part of everyday life.”

Later discussions determined the suitcase would be a user’s, not a dealer’s, allowing a broader range of contraband than any one-trick pusher could boast. “More people could conceivably relate to a user’s bag,” Siegler notes.

The bag does offer something for everyone, packed with narcotics, a bottle of wine, joints, cigarettes, condoms, cocaine, a hairbrush, and a brick of heroin. Its renaissance owner hopes also to find time for pleasure reading (paperback, lower left) and sightseeing (camera, lower right).

An acidic green—set against the palette’s deep purples and yellows—underscores the toxicity of the suitcase’s illegal viscera, which carries through to the title. Other than color tweaks, the image is just as you might see at LAX. “Turning these objects into X-rays,” says Oberman, “makes them beautiful.” Tiffany Meyers