Typophile - book covers we love - Comments

I love Cosac Naify too. IMO,

gabrielhl — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:38:42 -0700

I love Cosac Naify too. IMO, it’s by far the brazilian editing house with the best looking books. Almost everything they do is elegant. By elegant I mean being able to attract attention and interest trough simplicity and a sort of quietness. It’s sofistication: no need for myriads of flashy colors and superimposed elements.

Elaine is my brazilian book design idol. I hope to meet her someday.

Here is another Cosac Cover which I love:

The wonderful thing about this cover is that the paper has thin horizontal lines in relief that complement the horizontal design. Again, tactile. (is there anything duller than touching glossy, coated paper?) Also, the white dots you can see are numbers from one to fifty - the title is “fifty poems selected by the author”. The sky and stars reference one of the author’s most famous poems, translated “Morning Star”.

Love Cosac Naify work,

lore — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:46:22 -0700

Love Cosac Naify work, I’ve been in touch with Elaine once (I think she’s the art director there) and she’s not only talented but nice too. It’s a very small equipe but they do a very good job.
And what can I say about the Gay Goy’s guide? Gorgeous. Unless William proves me wrong, of course. Kidding William, you are what I consider a reliable source. ;)
I don’t believe blurbs either but I believe reviews especially when the source is reliable. Or I check the prizes. And prices. And weight.

Gabriel: These are lovely.

Miss Tiffany — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:56:12 -0700

Gabriel: These are lovely. The simplicity works.

Here’s a series of books

gabrielhl — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:32:19 -0700

Here’s a series of books from brazilian publisher cosac naify that I really like. They also have an interesting “tactile” side to them, with UV varnish that follows each “wallpaper”. (sorry if varnish is not the correct term. english is not my first language)

Is there a way to post the images in a row so it doesn’t take so much vertical space?

Okay - I finally remembered

Jackie T — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:04:19 -0700

Okay - I finally remembered which was my all-time favorite book cover. However, I must admit, it was never a book at all. Many times I refer to my dear departed friend James R. Harris. When he was the art director of trade books at Ballantine (when it was all under the Random House umbrella) he directed many photo shoots. At one of them he asked the photographer (it might have been Don Banks) if he wouldn’t mind afterward taking a few shots of him. So he dressed up for the occasion. Please remember, this was done before computers. It is a photograph with rub on (transfer) type - and a great sense of humor. So please enjoy - I have it poster size placed in my office (another friend saw it lying around and surprised me by having it framed recently so it wouldn’t deteriorate.

Please enjoy

I find the design of a book

kris — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:40:33 -0700

I find the design of a book cover a huge responsibility and I wonder how you guys deal with this task. Do you receive a brief from the publisher (or from the author) or do you just need to read the book yourself and try to capture its essence?

I have designed a few covers. I always receive a brief, and they usually have a feeling or mood they’d like to convey. I try to read as much of the book as possible, but sometimes time is very prohibitive! I’ve only bought one book for the cover: the Penguin edition of Ulysses with the modified Spectrum. Only read a few pages, too hard going for me. One day I’ll be intelligent enough to read it.

Here are a few I’ve done, for those who are interested.

These are the first two of a planned series. 2 colour covers to save a them a bit of dough, spot colours are easier to control & more vibrant than cmyk mixes. Type: Maple & Mercury, they play really well together.

this is the full cover, magenta lines indicate the spine. Printed black for budget, put the contents/artists on the cover to avoid arguments. I was also a bit drunk when doing the contents & thought it was too nice to but on the inside, and has the bonus of saving a few inner pages. Type: Farao & Exotique (unreleased)

Left is dual language, Arabic & English. Both run the correct way for the language and meet in the middle. Type: Poppl Pontifex, publisher really wanted big body copy, and Pontifex has a large x-height. Sexuality is a bit of a mishmash, I was told to make it “less gay & less Maori” and this this is how it ended up!

Alice writes really dark short stories, they are truly excellent! The one on the left is one of the first concepts, the one on the right is how it developed. I really wanted the left one to be gold foiled, but the cost was apparently prohibitive. Type in final: Karbon, in progress.

Virtually all my initial concepts are rejected, which takes some getting used to.

—K

>BUT, you then flipped it

timd — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:49:51 -0700

>BUT, you then flipped it over and read what the book was about and that made your final purchase decision.

Having been disappointed in the past by blurb I don’t do that any more. I have been seduced into buying solely by a cover though.

Great covers in waiting
http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/mypenguin/index.html

Tim

From:

hrant — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:13:26 -0700

From: http://typophile.com/node/29064

hhp

Thanks, Lore, for your

William Berkson — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:04:22 -0700

Thanks, Lore, for your open-minded response. I think what you were reacting to positively in the cover is Matthew Carter’s great titling face, Mantinia.

Here, from ’Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter’ is an example of its usage by Carter himself. A bit better :)

Rudolph Arnheim’s obit

lore — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:23:49 -0700

Rudolph Arnheim’s obit appeared today. He was 102. Who even knew he was still alive?
How weird, I mentioned him in a seminar last Tuesday and assumed he was dead.
William, thanks for the observation on the Marcus Aurelius’s book cover, I look at it in a different way now. Umph!

I tend to dislike special effects on book covers, embossed letters etc., glossy paper, especially those that scream: that’s why this book is so bloody expensive! I prefer the discrete but carefullty designed covers, it doesn’t matter if they age faster. Yellowed and smelly pages have their charm too.

Yes, how could I forget

pattyfab — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:27:18 -0700

Yes, how could I forget Carol Devine Carson.

You’re right, Patty —

ChuckGroth — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:47:01 -0700

You’re right, Patty — some of his covers are beautiful. His cover late last month for Haruki Murakami’s “After Dark” is terrific. Carol Devine Carson — also at Knopf, does some incredible work, too.

Chip Kidd veers between

pattyfab — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:29:03 -0700

Chip Kidd veers between total brilliance and ripping himself off. When I first started designing books the stars were Louise Fili, Fred Marcellino, and Carin Goldberg. Chip and I are of the same generation and I have to acknowledge he’s glamourized the business quite a bit. However his own monograph is horrible. I don’t know if he designed it or not.

Another book I bought for the cover (Paul Rand) - and will likely never read.

Speaking of books, Rudolph Arnheim’s obit appeared today. He was 102. Who even knew he was still alive?

Don, you don’t have the

William Berkson — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:08:09 -0700

Don, you don’t have the option of throwing the dust jacket when it is a paperback.

Also dust jackets can be eye catching and still sit happily on the shelf. Here are a couple of examples.

The Chicago Manual of Style uses great typography with a great typeface—Scala—and bright colors. The brightness not only attracts in the book store, but also gives a lightness to what could be an incredibly stodgy looking book. The inside is set in Scala also. It says the design is by Jill Shimabukuro, who I assume did both the inside and cover. The glory of it is a lot in the sharp beauty of Scala, so the fuzz of the screen doesn’t do it justice:

.
Here is another very different cover, for the Book of Legends. Here the frame is taken from an illuminated manuscript (a marriage contract, Ketubbah), and the inside designed to complement it. The cover is by Megan Wilson. I also know that the editor found the beautiful illuminated manuscript in a library.

This is going to be heresy

Don McCahill — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:00:45 -0700

This is going to be heresy in this place, but when I get a hardcover book, the first thing I do is discard the dustjacket. To me a book is meant to look like a book on my shelves (over 1000 hardcovers), not a poster. I consider the dustcover the advertising that got me to read the book, and it is the quality of the writing that gets it onto my shelves.

book covers we love

lore — Fri, 1 Jun 2007 09:57:12 -0700

Hello children

Once I bought a book just because it had a fabulous cover (by David Foldvari). I find the design of a book cover a huge responsibility and I wonder how you guys deal with this task. Do you receive a brief from the publisher (or from the author) or do you just need to read the book yourself and try to capture its essence? Is it true that as far as book covers are concerned “anything goes” or are there specific rules that need to be observed (proportions etc.)?

And if you have one, can you tell me about your favourite book cover and why?
Thanks and hope you enjoy the thread.