The Book Design Review

A Reader Writes...

2009-07-09T15:27:00.003-05:00

(I'm currently traveling and caring for a sick family member so posts will be limited for a few days, but this landed in the comments on a recent post and it made me laugh, which is exactly what I need right now.)

"Auuuuugh!!

Listen People. Google “Book Cover Design Blogs”. This book blogging thing is getting way out of control. I’m all for freedom of speech but this market is more saturated than government TARP funds. The gig of promoting of one’s self or others through the guise of “information” is UP!

I know, I know, This blog was here long before others, but the spawned droids run amok!

OK, back to work!"

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

2009-07-06T09:37:00.005-05:00

Design by Brett Yasko

Because you don't really know what conspiracy is lurking around the corner...or do you?

A Cultural Dictionary of Punk

2009-07-05T22:29:00.005-05:00

Design by Sarah Rainwater
Buy this book from Amazon.com

Punk means different things to different people, which in a way is very punk. The cover of Nicholas Rombes' A Cultural Dictionary of Punk gestures away from politics and class and instead settles on the DIY aesthetic which for many is its defining characteristic. (Whether or not punk is dead was hotly debated over at the Jacket Copy blog a few weeks ago; check out their interview with Rombes and (especially) the comments.) I love the straightforward handbill look of this, and that there's no pink to be seen anywhere on this cover is a major plus in my book.

I don't discuss the interiors of books nearly enough as I'd like to or should (here's a notable exception), but I will note Rombes' book reproduces some pretty cool graphic design artifacts from the era, such as Linder Sterling's Buzzcocks poster:

W/R/T the above, Linder said of collage: "For a short period I'd found a perfect mode of articulation. Punk was cutting out the question, 'Can I do this?'"

The answer, of course, was (and still is) yes.

Laying Low for the Holiday

2009-07-03T18:09:00.004-05:00

Laying low for the July 4th holiday weekend, but if your book cover jones just won't quit, or you're new to the site, here are the most popular posts of 2009 so far:

The BDR's Favorites of 2008

The BDR's Favorites of 2007

The BDR's Favorites of 2006

Books on Book Covers

The Craftsman

As always, thanks for stopping by. Traffic for The BDR is up 35% for the year so far, and I can't thank you enough for that.

Be safe, be nice, see you soon.

Ox-Tales Elements Series

2009-06-30T21:38:00.002-05:00

Design by Jonathan Gray

Rob Around Books beat me to it by a few hours while I was waiting for the designer's name from Profile Books, but since I already had it queued up, check out the design for this four-book collection of original stories meant to raise money for Oxfam. Rob's got the details, over at his post.

I Am Not Sidney Poitier

2009-06-30T06:19:00.002-05:00

Design by Kapo Ng@A-Men Project
Buy this book from Amazon.com

I love this cover for Percival Everett's I Am Not Sidney Poitier, about a man named Not Sidney Poitier (really) who is adopted by Ted Turner (yes, that one). There's much more to the story; Time Out NY's interview with Everett is a good place to start.

In less-skilled hands this could have gone wrong, with too much emphasis placed on the "Not Sidney" (I'm thinking about the usual suspects, like strikeout text or obscured faces). A book that deals with race and perception has to have characters who are out in the world; what better way to communicate this visually than with a calling card?

Burn This Book

2009-06-25T10:24:00.007-05:00

Designer credit to come
Buy this book from Amazon.com

Fellow book design bloggers Ben and Eric over at The Book Cover Archive blog posted the cover for the new paperback edition of The Ballad of Abu Ghraib earlier today, and I'm glad they did, as it gives us the opportunity (on two blogs) to discuss covers like the one you see below, the subtitle of which is "PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word."

Of The Ballad of Abu Ghraib, Ben or Eric (sign your posts, fellas! :-)) writes "I find it timeless and wonderful, with a gravity rarely seen on the shelf...Solid, well balanced, impactful." As the day has drawn on I find myself agreeing with that assessment more and more, and it's helped me to see what's so strong about the cover for Burn This Book, a "collection of essays that explore the meaning of censorship and the power of literature to inform the way we see the world, and ourselves."

Both designs provoke us to think about definitions. Publishers Weekly calls The Ballad of Abu Ghraib "the complete story of Abu Ghraib." I'm old and cynical enough to know there's never a complete story, and I think the Penguin designer of The Ballad of Abu Ghraib knows this too. We're familiar with some -- but not all -- of the images of torture perpetrated at that prison, but no matter how "complete" the visual and historical record becomes, there will always be something about what happened there that is not accessible to us as readers or to designers who are tasked with defining, visually, what the book tries to communicate.

Americans throw around the word "censorship" like Krewe members throwing beads off a Mardi Gras float. You're not being censored if you can't wear shorts to work. You're not being censored if Apple doesn't sell your stupid app. Not being able to mourn your dead, getting shot for demonstrating election results, governments banning art and books as incendiary: that gets us closer to a definition. But what does it feel like? What does it look like? Again, wisely, Burn This Book's designer knows better than to try to reduce censorship to a single visual conventional image.

So. Check out the cover design for The Ballad of Abu Ghraib (and Burn This Book, of course) and tell me what you think about what I contend is thoughtful, brilliant design.

A Deadly Collaboration

2009-06-24T00:01:00.000-05:00

I've long been a fan of Gregg Kulick's quirky, funny covers and collage illustrations for Michael Largo's death-obsessed books.

Kulick recently designed This Will Kill You; different authors, similar aesthetic, same great result (actually, this might be my favorite of them all):

Her Fearful Symmetry

2009-06-23T06:22:00.000-05:00

Simon & Schuster tweeted yesterday that the cover for Audrey Niffenegger's second novel Her Fearful Symmetry is final; sorry but I couldn't find a larger image other than this one, from the S&S site. The book is set in and around Highgate Cemetery and there's a ghost or two, so this skyward view from a creepy place works real nicely, I think.

I couldn't help but think almost immediately of Jen Wang's design for In The Woods; anyone know if she's involved with the Niffenegger book?

A Writer Asks

2009-06-23T06:20:00.000-05:00

A BDR reader (who's also a writer) asked me a great question a few days ago:

"I think a great deal about what a book will look like when it's done. Ultimately, though, on my previous books, the jackets were done with little or no say from me. Now, as I finish up another, I wonder: How does a writer push his publisher to pay attention to design? Can a writer lobby to have one of these elite designers you talk about so often assigned to his book?"

Anyone care to jump in?

Black Postcards, Hardcover and Paperback

2009-06-21T20:35:00.002-05:00

Designer credits to come

On top, the hardcover. Below that, the paperback. I love seeing little tweaks like this. Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean & Britta) is a musician after all; why hasn't the guitar been there all along?

Would You Like That With Fur, or Without?

2009-06-18T06:56:00.001-05:00

Designer credits to come

Jacket Copy recently asked: "Will there really be a fur-covered edition of The Wild Things?" Apparently, there will be. This was posted on Gawker and it's also in the McSweeney's store:

For those who like their books a little less hirsute, there's this:

Thanks to Theresa Evangelista for pointing out the Gawker post.

The Daydreamer, US and UK

2009-06-17T06:35:00.001-05:00

US design by Megan Wilson

Portraying what a daydreamer sees (the US cover, first image) strikes me as more powerful than an external view of the act of daydreaming (the UK cover, second image).

These Are Not Book Jackets

2009-06-15T22:15:00.009-05:00

We've all got our knickers in a twist over the future of book publishing and what it means for the book arts, but have you ever thought about the potentially lucrative future of this-is-not-a-book-cover book cover design? ;-)

(Top image is from Amazon.com, bottom from Amazon.co.uk.)

An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories: Volume 2

2009-06-14T22:10:00.005-05:00

The Daniel Clowes-drawn cover draws you in, but under the dust jacket is the real payoff: two William Steig illustrations printed on the hard casing.

Anyone know if there are similarly delightful surprises on vol.1?

Friday Miscellany, June 12

2009-06-12T00:02:00.000-05:00

/1/ Video of Chip Kidd at Typo Berlin. Money quote: "I'd like to stay in book design; I don't know if book design wants to stay in the world."

/2/ Previously mentioned on the BDR Twitter feed, but worth pointing out again: the Australian cover for Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro is, um, interesting.

/3/ Marie Mundaca on designing for David Foster Wallace. Will typing his name ever not make me sad?

Hamlet

2009-06-10T06:14:00.001-05:00

Design by W.H. Chong

Something tells me the young adults at which John Marsden's contemporary novelization of Hamlet is aimed -- even (especially?) those who agree with the mighty Couch Flambeau ("I hate Shakespeare / He's too hard to read / I wish he were dead / Oh, he is?") -- might give the Bard another shot when they see this. Yes, the placement of "a novel" is pretty horrible. But if you're a 13-year-old, do you care?

Before the Big Bang

2009-06-08T06:17:00.002-05:00

Design by Angela Goddard

I'd love to think for the sake of balanced scientific and philosophic inquiry there's a chicken on the back cover. But Stephen Hawking says it's all about the egg.

I'm Down

2009-06-04T13:27:00.008-05:00

Design by Rob Grom

I had to ask designer Rob Grom about his cover for Mishna Wolff's memoir of "(growing) up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black."

Says Rob: "I was provided with a bunch of photos from the author and the classic school portrait stood out from the rest. I originally wanted have a custom made gold chain with the title on it, or an embroidered hat with the title on it, but my creative director Steve Snider thought that it should have the same feel as the book cover for Born to Kvetch. So, we brainstormed and decided an afro was the way to go."

Jennifer Carrow's design for Born to Kvetch appears below. Both make me smile.

The Humbling

2009-06-03T06:09:00.002-05:00

Design by Milton Glaser
Buy this book from Amazon.com

Simply wonderful design by Milton Glaser for Roth's tale of "one of the leading American stage actors of his generation, now in his sixties, (who) has lost his magic, his talent, and his assurance." This aches: there's real sadness and loneliness and no joy here, and the spotlight shining through the stage floor reinforces that it is shining on nothing.

Some info about Glaser's relationship with Roth here, and a shout-out to The Oxen of the Sun blog, where I first saw this cover. (Check out his leather-bound copy of Murakami's After Dark.)

K Blows Top

2009-05-29T06:07:00.000-05:00

Design by Pete Garceau
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I didn't know this: before his infamous 1960 shoe-banging incident, Nikita Khrushchev toured the U.S. "and captivated the world with his comic, belligerent, threatening, childish, and just-plain-offbeat antics...meeting Hollywood icons, eating hot dogs, mugging for the press, arguing with President Eisenhower, (and) making fun of Vice President Nixon..." (Booklist). Lurking behind the shenanigans was the very real threat of nuclear annihilation, which makes me appreciate the collage all the more. I see an explosive cloud. Do you?

Imperial

2009-05-28T06:16:00.003-05:00

Designer credits to come

The (forthcoming) publication of two books from William T. Vollman presents a pretty cool opportunity to see basic design elements used in different ways and to different effect. On top is the cover for Vollman's 1,344(!) page "encyclopedic gathering of facts, stories, impressions, and analysis about the volatile and tragic U.S.-Mexico borderland" (Booklist); below is the cover for his companion volume of photographs taken in Imperial County, California.

Jane Austen Student Redesigns

2009-05-26T06:41:00.002-05:00

Design by Leigh-Anne Mullock

Recent graphic design program graduate (and Jane Austen fan) Leigh-Anne Mullock designed these for a student project: "I used hand-embroidered illustrations which feature imagery about their relationships that the novel's protagonists might have stitched." And by "used hand-embroidered illustrations," she means she actually embroidered these illustrations.

Nice work, and a great example of what Paul Rand told his students.

Dada in Paris

2009-05-22T00:22:00.003-05:00

Design credit to come
Buy this book from Amazon.com

The MIT Press has reissued Michel Sanouillet's seminal Dada in Paris. Before you say this isn't Dada enough for you, read the National Gallery of Art's description of Dadaist typography: "Dadaists delighted in uncoventional typographic design, frequently mixing fonts employing unorthodox punctuation, printing both horizontally and vetically on a single sheet, and sprinkling texts with randomly chosen printers' symbols." I call this close enough and pretty delightful.

Spent

2009-05-18T23:46:00.003-05:00

Design by Evan Gaffney
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This could have gone the way of an ascent of man illustration, and it would have been the poorer for it. But it's the asymmetry that really makes this work. The placement of the illustration is a nice antidote to the centered, stacked type, and pushing the cart off the edge of the photo creates movement and suggests, well, evolution.