18. PH.D
When I Knew, a compilation of stories in which gay men and women recount the flashbulb moments in life that their sexual orientation became clear, features no shortage of gay icons. Garland and Streisand, for example, grace the pages. But Ph.D’s design never yields to cliché, nor do the stories themselves. Instead, the firm emphasizes idea-driven layouts.

A drop-capped W mirrors the pose that John Epperson, aka Lypsinka, strikes in her gown on the opposite page. Another spread, in which comedienne Suzanne Westenhoefer writes about her infatuation with Martina Navratilova, features a tennis stripe through its center. The most formidable challenge, says Ph.D’s Clive Piercy, was overcoming editor Robert Trachtenberg’s reticence to embrace graphic subtleties; the editor often wanted more overt graphic and textual connections. “I don’t hold that against him,” says Piercy. “He wanted something excellent, and so did we. In the end, I’m 100-percent happy.”
Tiffany Meyers