Category: Books

Book content — more than the book’s design, that is — is the main subject here.

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50 Books, 50 Covers

50 Books 50 Covers

It’s time once again for AIGA’s 50 Books, 50 Covers:

This time-honored competition aims to identify the 50 best-designed books and book covers. With 696 entries from 36 countries, the juror-selections from this year’s 50 Books | 50 Covers of 2020 competition exemplify the best current work from a year marked by unparalleled change.

Picking favorites from this list is always fun, and often includes books and/or covers that I haven’t seen before — especially 2020, when seeing things in person was often … difficult. So without further ado (in no particular order):

Accidentally Wes Anderson

The unique destinations of Accidentally Wes Anderson. This 50 Books item catches the eye with the cover and the photographs carry you inside and to places heretofore unknown. Great stuff. Design by Mia Johnson.

Manifesto - Cover

Manifesto is more than meets the eye, even though the cover does an excellent job leading you in. It’s easier to quote the existing description than write one, so: “The opening pages contain an original text employing the sort of bombastic rhetoric traditionally associated with the manifesto genre. The typeset text is then cut up and reassembled, repeating throughout the book, each iteration becoming source material for subsequent cut-ups. The project takes a critical approach to book arts to explore authorship, readership, and the materiality of language.” Yeah:

Manifesto - interior

It’s tiny, too: 4.125 by 6. The design, by Victor Mingovits, is anything but. Well done!

DR. ME

Not Dead of Famous Enough, Yet compiles 10 years of work from a design firm into one place, with this surprisingly modest cover. DR. ME, as the duo of Ryan Doyle & Mark Edwards became known, not only do quality work, they know how to stitch together a quality book — to a point where they picked up a prestigious award. See more.

Talking Animals

Talking Animals violates one of my usual cover-design rules: it’s not immediately apparent which title word is first. Nonetheless, it’s eye-catching enough to warrant an exception — and a 50 Covers award. Design by Na Kim.

Self Portrait with Russian Piano

Na Kim makes another appearance with Self Portrait with Russian Piano. Kudos for something that’s equally eye-catching yet about as completely different as humanely possible — talent, defined.

Sestry

“Eye-catching and mysterious,” says the entry for Sestry. “Oppressive and mysterious,” says the description. Both work — it’s certainly mysterious enough to catch your attention, grab it off the shelf, and investigate further. Design by Jan Šabach.

I Lived on Mars

Once Upon a Time, I Lived on Mars: Space Exploration, and Life on Earth is a loooooong title/subtitle combination. It’s something that, as a cover designer, you dread — but Johnathan Bush knocked it out of the park with this hand-lettered illustrated piece that’s 180 degrees from where you’d expect.

The Turn of the Screw is probably my favorite of the whole collection:

Turn of the Screw

Almost simplistic … until you really look at it; the kind that makes you think, “I wish I’d done that.” Fantastic work by Kaitlin Kall.

Lastly, two covers previously mentioned here:

Verge

Verge, where unexpected choices lead to great new places here, especially with the yellow band overlaying the wolf. So, so good. Design by Rachel Willey. And:

Zo

Zo, which uses illustrations to huge effect — but this time with a huge typography effect to go along with it, and lo, it works. Great design choices by Janet Hansen.

Again, see the whole list at AIGA: 50 Books, 50 Covers. Props to Hyperallergic for the heads up.

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(More) Beautifully Briefed, Books and Design, May 2021

BB_May-2021_More

On David Hockney’s Piccadilly Circus logo:

piccadilly-circus

It’s been a minute since I’ve been in London — 2011, to be exact — and I’d love to go back. The food, the parks, the museums, the Thames, the short train rides to more interesting places (Hello, Cambridge?), and even the Tube. (We’ll leave the anti-Americanism aside for right now — we’re post-Trump and post-Covid, so traveling is at least an option!) Yet even the cultural masterpiece that is London is showing some cracks; from the New Statesman:

Hockney’s Piccadilly Circus has also drawn criticism for its simplistic approach. Over on the cesspit of arts criticism that is Twitter, anonymous accounts that decry all art made post-1920 as an abomination have ridiculed Hockney’s scrawl as indicative of the death of art. Other critics have rightly argued that the work feels like a red flag to a bull: fuelling culture-war debates about the legitimacy of public art, rather than encouraging the public to get onside.

I like it more every time I see it. Read more at It’s Nice That.

On the NYC subway map:

Speaking of It’s Nice That, an interesting new book from Gary Hustwit . . . on the debate over the New York City subway map. On the one side, the iconic Massimo Vignelli version, introduced in 1972, representing the less-is-more approach. On the other, the replacement version from John Tauranac, introduced in 1979, representing the more-accurate-is-more approach. (An updated version of the latter is still in use today.)

But back in 1978, the two got up on stage at Cooper Union’s Great Hall — home to debates of, among others, Abraham Lincoln — and pitched their case:

They Look Happy! (Subway debate 1978)

Newly discovered photographs and audio lead to this new, smartly-designed, book. Read more at It’s Nice That; Dezeen has an interview with the author. Pre-order the book and get a limited-edition letterpress print at Oh You Pretty Things.

Subway Map Debate Book

On books and book design:

Nice new cookbook chock full o’ seventies-era design, “Violaine et Jérémy returns with a cookbook for Molly Baz, featuring three of the studio’s much-loved typefaces,” at — wait for it — It’s Nice That:

Nicoise Sandwich

Sandwich Nicoice. Mmmmmmm.

Lastly, just because, Kottke collects pencil photography to examine the typography. Nice.

Kottke on Pencil Photography

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A History of Arab Graphic Design

A History of Arab Graphic Design is easily the best introduction to the history of modern Arab visual culture on the market today. It lacks the jargon of exhibition catalogues, leans heavily on visual sources, and dismisses some previously held assumptions about Arab art[.]

Something for those of us in the West who sometimes suffer from Western-centricity. More at the Brooklyn Rail.

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Beautifully Briefed: Books, March 2021

Five book design items that caught my attention recently.

First, from ArtNet News. Prior to basically everything, Andy Warhol did this:

“The whimsical book was a collaboration with interior decorator Suzie Frankfurt, who wrote the ridiculous recipes, and the artist’s mother, Julia Warhola, who provided the calligraphy, replete with charming misspellings. [It] was the last of a number of books Warhol designed in the 1950s, before he shot to fame in 1962 with Pop art compositions featuring Campbell’s soup and Coca-Cola. Book design offered him a valuable creative outlet during the years he worked as a commercial illustrator.” See more.

The rest are from the New Yorker‘s “Briefly Noted” reviews — which, I’ll admit, inspired the title of this post. They pick four titles weekly, and while I’m sure many are great, actually great book design is rare. So to have four in two weeks … well, just had to say, “noted.” (The New Yorker is, of course, subscription — but there is a free account with limited options if you’d like to read their review.)

The first three are from the March 8th, 2021, issue, starting with In Memory of Memory:

The simplicity of the concentric rectangles — and “destination” dot — is mesmerizing.

Next, Cathedral:

Not a simple illustration in this case, and still an attention-getter in the background. Nice.

Next, my favorite of this set, The Weak Spot:

A very brief (176 page!) debut novel with hits-above-its-weight cover design. (Content, too, presumably…;)

Lastly, from the March 15th issue, Infinite Country:

Color and composition unite into something … infinitely good.

Enjoy.

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Latest in Regular Sport: New Orwell Covers

Creativeboom points out that Heath Kane, not a citizen but in fact a subject of the Crown, has designed new covers for George Orwell’s classics Animal Farm, 1984, and more.

Two interesting things about this: they call it the “final printed edition,” without further explanation. I somehow doubt there won’t be more editions in print — high schoolers everywhere would mourn, professors cry, and surveillance societies everywhere smile. Okay, overdramatic, but still.

And, I really preferred this one:

More from Penguin on Orwells through the ages.

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The Joy of Monochrome, from Spine

“A technicoloured cover can draw me to it like the proverbial moth to a flame. But as covers get more vivid, the buyers’ senses can become overwhelmed. They can’t see the books for the rainbow.”

Spine’s Vyki Hendy argues that monochrome — by which she means black-and-white-or-shades-thereof — is powerful. I’d argue that single-color items should belong in this category, too, but her piece stands on its own. Take a look.

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Peter Mendelsund’s The Look of the Book

From Bookshop.org’s description: “Why do some book covers instantly grab your attention, while others never get a second glance? Fusing word and image, as well as design thinking and literary criticism, this captivating investigation goes behind the scenes of the cover design process to answer this question and more.”

“As the outward face of the text, the book cover makes an all-important first impression. The Look of the Book examines art at the edges of literature through notable covers and the stories behind them, galleries of the many different jackets of bestselling books, an overview of book cover trends throughout history, and insights from dozens of literary and design luminaries.”

Looks like great stuff (if you’ll pardon the expression). Get it from Amazon Smile or Bookshop.org. (Via Kottke, unsurprisingly.)

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My 20 Favorite Book Covers of 2020

This list is simple and straightforward: these aren’t necessarily all of the best book covers of 2020, only my favorites — gathered from the combined lists of LitHub, Creative Review, NPR’s 2020 Book Concierge, and the Casual Optimist, along with sightings in the New York Times Book Review, BookRiot, and Spine Magazine. Interestingly, despite the year many of us would rather forget, the best book covers are, as usual, memorable.

My favorite, by quite a lot:

There’s no other way to put this: it’s brilliant. The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell; design by Stephanie Ross. Read about how it was put together, along with initial ideas and drafts, at Spine Magazine. Great, great stuff!

The rest, in alphabetical order:

On the one hand, exactly what you’d expect — except a) it’s a novel, and b) it’s not really what you’d expect. Nice. Design by David High.

The left and right halves here are a perfect union, and I’m a sucker for hand lettering. Design by Anna Morrison.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a two-color cover I liked so much — major kudos here. Design by Emile Mahon.

Blue tigers. Red eyes. Crooked title block. Yet somehow rich beyond easy description. (The author calls it “haunted by place.”) Design by Grace Han.

Can’t. Unsee. The. Rat. Home run of horror. Design by Wil Staehle.

Simple type that’s well executed meets brilliant original painting. Proof that less can be more, if you’ll pardon the cliché. Design by Stephen Brayda.

One of this year’s best uses of color, along with another great illustration. Design by Adalis Martinez.

This design has gotten a good deal of attention — and deservedly so. Eye-catching by fives. Design by Jamie Keenan.

Explosive. (Sorry.) Actually, I’m personally jealous of this one: it feels like one I would have done, given the sudden (and unlikely) moment of creative greatness. Design by Christine Foltzer.

The hand work on this one — both illustration and lettering — just make it. A universe of goodness. Design by Sara Wood.

Scary good. Well, just scary, really, especially for a resident of the South. Excellent design by Henry Sene Yee.

Retro style and simple typography combine to make something excellent. Suppose a cover, with design by Katy Homans.

When has one color print been more compelling? This book would stand out on any bookshelf. Imagination by Jack Smyth.

The original artwork (by Kai McCall) really grabs your attention … and then hangs on, staring straight at you. Wonderful. Design by Stephen Brayda.

Here, the simple background illustration is enormously enhanced by the choice of colors, the “heart” cutout, and typography choices. A case of 10 + 10 + 10 = 1000. Design by Lauren Peters-Collaer.

Deceptive at first glance, the colors here keep adding up (to build on a theme). Another excellent example of hand-lettering adding so much, too. Another great design by Lauren Peters-Collaer.

Unexpected choices lead to great new places here, especially with the yellow band overlaying the wolf. So, so good. Design by Rachel Willey.

No speculation here: this one takes me by storm. (Sorry.) “We are not ready nor worthy” applies to the cover, as well! Design by John Gall.

Like Weather, Zo uses illustrations to huge effect — but this time with a huge typography effect to go along with it, and lo, it works. Great design choices by Janet Hansen.

Now, let’s all survive 2021 so we can do this again!

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New Book Celebrates Risograph Printing

It took 850 days, 74 tubes of soy ink, fifteen colours, 660 masters, 690,000 sheets of paper, three fans, two digital Riso duplicators and four people to complete this 360-page book that focuses on one thing: the process of Risograph printing.

I have to admit: I hadn’t heard of risograph printing before — Wiki has a (very) brief intro — but the book looks like something very interesting indeed, along the lines of a Pantone catalog on steroids. Read more at Eye Magazine.

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Dust Jackets: A History

Although books as objects have been around for many hundreds of years, by looking at the history of the dust jacket, we can see how young the modern book design really is.

Book Riot has posted the interesting “The History of Dust Jackets: From Disposable to Collectable” for all of our entertainment, education, and general love-of-books reading.

(Check out their “Why are Books That Shape?” and “The History of Deckle Edges,” too.)

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American Alliance of Museums: Q&A with Book Designer

After reviewing hundreds of entries every year, the jury for AAM’s annual Museum Publications Design Competition awards only one publication with the Frances Smyth-Ravenel Prize for Excellence in Publication Design, recognizing it as the best submission overall. This year, the winner is David Levinthal: War, Myth, Desire, a publication of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, designed by Design Monsters studio. We recently talked to the book’s designer, George Corsillo,to learn more about the concept behind his prizeworthy design: a four-volume retrospective of the artist David Levinthal’s photographs which took two years to complete.

Read on!

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Inside Hook on Peter Mendelsund and book design

In fact, for all his acclaim in the field of book design, Mendelsund himself isn’t particularly fond of book covers, generally seeing them as an impediment that inevitably colors a reader’s perception of a book. “As much as I love book covers — I love making them, it’s fun — I don’t love the fact that there’s somebody between me and the text.”

These days, actually, the renowned book designer who never wanted to be a book designer tends to simply rip the covers off his books altogether. “If it’s a paperback, I’ll rip the cover off,” he says. “The books that are most important to me in my life don’t have covers on them.”

I didn’t know Peter Mendelsund’s name off the top of my head [Memory not what it used to be? —Ed.], but we’re sure familiar with his work, such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the Atlantic’s recent redesign. And what an interesting relationship with book design he has. Read more