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Category: Design

Published February 21, 2009

Something for the Weekend, Feb 21th, 2009

Corpoetics — The text from the websites of  “well-known brands and corporations” remixed and rearranged into strangely engaging and enigmatic poetry by Nick Asbury (photo above from Ace Jet 170). I rather like the one taken from Scottish Widows:

Here in an Edinburgh coffee house,
their futures became history.
Meet the latest widow.

Copies of Corpoetics available for £5 (plus p&p) from Nick Asbury’s website, and all proceeds go to the National Literacy Trust, an independent charity dedicated to changing lives through literacy.

A Q&A With Four Young Editors — Just a fantastic, fascinating conversation between Richard Nash (Soft Skull), Lee Boudreaux (Ecco), Alexis Gargagliano (Scribner), and Eric Chinski (FSG) in the latest issue of Poets & Writers. It’s long. Make some coffee, grab a snack and devote some time to it. Well worth it. Honestly.

In Defense of Readers — Mandy Brown, Creative Director at W. W. Norton & Company,  on designing websites for readers:

Despite the ubiquity of reading on the web, readers remain a neglected audience… Readers flourish when they have space—some distance from the hubbub of the crowds—and as web designers, there is yet much we can do to help them carve out that space.

And last, but by no means least… Coralie in Conversation — The Caustic Cover Critic interviews Penguin’s super-talented book designer Coralie Bickford-Smith.

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Published February 19, 2009

Midweek Miscellany Feb 18th, 2009

 

Typographic Trees — I saw pictures of the latest collaboration between artist Gordon Young and design studio why not associates a while back, but a mention in the latest issue of Creative Review is the perfect excuse to post a couple of images of these lovely sculptures for Crawley Library in West Sussex. It’s probably worth mentioning that (unsurprisingly) why not also do a nice line book design.

An interview with Allan Kornblum, publisher at nonprofit literary publisher Coffee House Press, is the latest installment in Scott Esposito’s How to Publish in a Recession series  at Conversational Reading:

Now with Borders on the brink, and former readers becoming would-be writers and self-publishing books instead of reading books, a major shake-up was inevitable… The recession isn’t the only factor driving changes in writing and publishing. Writers on the one hand, and book and magazine publishers on the other, are both trying to figure out what the changes in information technology will mean. Will books get shorter, so they can be read on a cell phone? Will nonfiction migrate to ebooks, while literature stays on the printed page? Will backlist titles become downloadable PDFs? Will future desktop printers include binding equipment?

Funeral in Berlin — Possibly the most badass cover ever (pictured above) and part of the amazing collection in the Penguin Paperback Spotters’ Guild Flickr pool (first seen at FFFFound). And funnily enough it is apparently Len Deighton’s 80th Birthday.

30 Novels Worth Buying for the Cover Alone — “A book must stand out on the bookstore bookshelf yet cover designers rarely receive the recognition that authors do.” And  in “appreciation of these unsung artists”, Beth Carswell chooses her 30 favourite fiction covers for AbeBooks.

MinuteMen — a retro-Nintendo-style-arcade-kung-fu-kick-punch-jump-game promoting the new Watchmen movie. Smartass viral marketing if you like that kind of thing. And if you listen closely, that sound you hear is Alan Moore’s teeth grinding away in Northampton. Buy the book.  (via GalleyCat).

How do you define good design? Gary Hustwit, director of Helvetica, interviewed about his new film Objectified at the Dwell Magazine blog:

If it didn’t exist, would anyone really miss it? Would it leave a hole in anyone’s life?

If we asked ourselves this question in publishing more often, how many books would actually get published? And would publishers be in the mess they’re in now? Answers on a postcard please.

And finally, Spy Vibe — a blog dedicated to 1960’s spy style! This is so cool I can’t even be bothered to find a tenuous link to books or publishing (although there surely is one)…

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Published February 16, 2009

H.N. Werkman

Every day,  Eric Baker,  of Manhattan-based design firm Eric Baker Design Associates,  spends 30 minutes before work looking for “images that are beautiful, funny, absurd and inspiring”, and each Saturday he posts his selections to the Design Observer.

Eric’s selections for  14th February were all drawn from a great collection of images that Miguel Oks has posted to Flickr,  including  some amazing sets of 20th Century avant-garde books.

The covers pictured here are by the brilliant Hendrik Werkman (H.N. Werkman)  for the literary typographic journal Next Call , and are taken from the Dutch Books set.

Yale University Press published a lovely book by Alston W. Purvis on Werkman in 2004 as part of their Monographics series.

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Published February 13, 2009

Something for the Weekend, Feb 13th, 2008

Apologies for the rant about the Globe and Mail this morning (note to self: don’t blog without coffee). Hopefully a highly-caffeinated design-heavy post for the weekend will make up for it…

First off, Jenny Griggs’ gorgeous typographic designs for Peter Carey’s backlist (pictured above) described by the great man himself as “A triumph!!!!!! Fucking fantastic!!” (Jenny talks about her more recent papercut designs at FaceOut Books)

M.S. Corley re-images the Lemony Snicket (pictured above) and Harry Potter series as Penguin Classics (via the BDR)

Metacovers — Joseph at the BDR looks at books on book covers (see above!).


The Way Through Doors — written by Jesse Ball; stunning minimal cover design by Helen Yentus for Vintage. Not quite a ‘metacover’ but I still love it (pictured above — seen at the Book Cover Archive of course)

Holey Font! – “How much of a letter can be removed while maintaining readability?” EcoFont has tiny holes and uses up to 20% less ink. Based on Verdana, and developed by SPRANQ in the Netherlands, it’s free to download, and free to use. And it seems to work.

And lastly, The Book Depository Live — Watch what books people buy from The Book Depository around the world in real time. Very cool. (via @paperbackjack)

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Published February 11, 2009

The Back of My Head

The Caustic Cover Critic has posted some amazing book covers by the legendary Saul Bass that are just too good not to share:

I love the covers adapted from Bass’ movie posters for the Penguin editions of Saint Joan and Anatomy of a Murder, but this cover of Preminger: An Autobiography (pictured) is less well known. And it was nice to be reminded of the movie Yi Yi in which 8-year-old Yang-Yang makes it his mission to lovingly photograph the back of people’s heads…

…And in looking an image for Yi Yi, I came across a rather lovely post by designer Eric Skillman about creating the DVD edition for Criterion Collection:

The actor who played Yang Yang was obviously no longer available, so we had find a back-of-head double. We found a photographer (the talented Andre Constantini), who led us to a young model named Brian, the back of whose head was a fine match for Yang Yang.

Eric also designs books as it turns out. His blog looks great! A day of nice finds.

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Published February 5, 2009

What Are You Looking At?

This book just arrived in our office and it’s staring right at me!

There’s more than a little something of  the late, great Paul Rand about the transfixing cover for Essentials of Visual Communication by Bo Bergstrom (published by Laurence King)  wouldn’t you say?

…which is about all the excuse I need  to post this great video:

(Full disclosure: Raincoast Books distribute Laurence King, and therefore Essentials of Visual Communication, in Canada)

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Published January 28, 2009

Midweek Miscellany, Jan 28th 2009


John Updike (pictured) has died at 76. The Guardian and the New York Times look back at his life and career in pictures. Designer Observer points to ‘Deceptively Conceptual’ Updike’s astute 2005 essay on book covers for the New Yorker:

Publishing forms a minor branch of the entertainment industry, and book design is increasingly a matter of fashion—that is, of attention-getting. In the visual clamor of a bookstore, the important thing is to be different; a whisper becomes a shout, and the ugly becomes beautiful if it attracts attention. Yet an utter flaunting of conventional expectations may baffle and repel the public; when the title and the author’s name are left off the front of the book… it sends a subliminal message of contempt for the written word, the product being packaged.

Batman as jazz– Brad Mackay wins top prize for funniest headline of the week for his look at the reinvention of the Dark Knight and the genius of BatManga! in the Globe and Mail.

“Content is Free… But Curation is Sacred” — Peter Collingridge at Times Emit considers the implications of the Google settlement and what happens if/when we are flooded with unmediated free “stuff”:

[A]s the amount of content we are exposed to increases, without any discernible gauge of quality, it is the trusted curators of that content to whom we will choose to give our attention, time or money, rather then trying to filter it all out personally… the curator may be the bloke in the record shop who knows my music collection and recommends something new, the staff in my local wine merchant, or a particularly good blog I follow, my newspaper – anything. However, it is not Amazon’s recommendation algorithm; it is decidedly human, and, over time, a relationship of trust is built up. If it works, that trust leads to action, purchase, attention, refinement and more trust.

See the Web Site, Buy the Book: J. Courtney Sullivan looks at author web sites and book trailers for the New York Times.

Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publisher Weekly has been fired is “leaving as part of a companywide restructuring”. The indefatigable Sarah Weiman has a extensive round-up of the reactions in the blogosphere.

The fabulous Book Cover Archive have recently add a couple of lovely minimalist cover designs by Gabriele Wilson (pictured above). Nice.

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Published January 23, 2009

Things We Didn’t See Coming

Love this simple, elegant cover solution for Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steve Amsterdam (seen at JACKET MECHANICAL):

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Published January 19, 2009

Vintage Paperback Illustrations

Sanford Kossin cover for Bantam 1957

What with the inauguration this week it seems awfully quiet on the publishing front right now. Maybe that’s just relative to the economic blitzkrieg that happened before Christmas or my twitchy unease about what horrible surprises 2009 might hold!

In any case, I’m going to use the lull as an excuse to post a link to Kyle Katz’s incredible, overwhelming, (possibly obsessive?) Flickr collection of vintage paperback covers, which I’ve had bookmarked gathering dust for about year… The collection has been loving arranged into various categories — including by the cover illustrator (!) — and, it is, in Katz’s words, “mostly pulp fiction, vintage sleaze, almost all mass market, and usually between 1940 and 1980, with a few exceptions.” But it so much more than that. It’s terrifying. And brilliant.

Alvin Lustig design for New Directions 1950

Link

(via Leif Peng’s marvellous Today’s Inspiration)

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Published January 17, 2009

More Vintage Penguins and Pelicans

Ace Jet 170 has just posted about a “brilliant and odd” vintage Penguin paperback design by Herbert Spencer (pictured):

And, what with the link yesterday to Things magazine’s collection of vintage Pelican covers, I thought I should also link to Ace Jet 170’s growing Penguin/Pelican Flickr collection.

Ace Jet 170

Ace Jet 170’s Penguin/Pelican Flickr Collection

UPDATE

Also: The Penguin Paperback Spotters’ Guide Flickr Pool

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Published January 14, 2009

Jules Verne Series at FaceOut Books

The featured work at FaceOut Books this week is 28-year-old Ely Sarig’s elegant–and unpublished–designs for Jules Verne’s classic 19th Century science fiction novels 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (above), From the Earth to the Moon (below), and The Clipper of the Clouds . The designs draw inspiration from Victorian industrial design, pirate ships, WWII submarines and spacecraft. Does it get any better than that?

Link

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Published January 6, 2009

Interview with Coralie Bickford-Smith

Penguin Books award-winning book cover designer Coralie Bickford-Smith (mentioned previously here and here) discusses her experiences, influences, book cover designs, and more, in a great interview over at design:related :

When I feel intimidated I just start making stuff so that before I can get frozen, something interesting is already grabbing my attention and keeping my mind occupied. As every designer has a different approach to a title, I try not to think “what would so-and-so do” and instead remind myself that my own approach is what I should be aiming for. Books are rich, wonderful things – there’s always something new you can bring out of them. Some people have to keep finding ways to package soap powder – I’ve got a lot more to go on with Crime and Punishment.

Link

(via The Book Design Review)

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