GARY HEAD

I first met Jack when I was a staff designer at Wadsworth in the early 1970s. I was pleased to be assigned his books because they were the books that usually had the best authors, the biggest budgets, and were printed on the best paper—thanks to Jack. His books were also the ones that usually sold the most copies. The only downside was that I had to use Palatino, Jack’s favorite typeface because of its high character count that would make the book shorter. A small price to pay.

In later years, as a freelancer, I again worked on many of Jack's books. They continued to be written by the best authors, having the bigger production budgets, and were printed on better paper. They were also even more successful. Of course, I still had to use Palatino!

Also, Jack had an ongoing fascination with photography and cameras. From time to time Jack and I would discuss cameras. Jack was always searching for “best” camera, but it had to be small since he traveled so much. He read review after review in search of the perfect camera. He finally settled on a Nikon, but he had memorized the specs for most of the other cameras in the world! After we both retired we decided to go out and take photos together. Our first trip was to Half Moon Bay and the second trip was to Stanford University. The trouble was that since we had such a shared history in publishing, we spent both days driving around talking about the early days at Wadsworth, people we had almost forgotten, and the books we had worked on together. I only took a few shots and I’m not sure that Jack ever turned his camera on! I enjoyed both days and had hopes that we would one day be able to “shoot” together again. 

Jack, rest in peace.

Gary