Dean Hacohen began his career as a copywriter at an ad agency, where he met Sherry Scharschmidt, his first art director partner. He says that in advertising, experimenting with different configurations of elements can lead to interesting ideas—which is what sparked the notion of using book pages as blankets. He lives in White Plains, New York.

Sherry Scharschmidt has worked as an art director in agencies from New York to Tokyo. She is also a painter whose rebus-style works feature cats or dogs combined with salvaged sign letters. She now lives and works in Chicago.