Apathy and Other Small Victories
I would love to know if the sign language characters are merely decorative, or if they have something to do with the book. Guessing the latter, but you never know. And I like how the image makes me think "Will he do it? Or is he just too apathetic to shoot?" :-)
9 comments:
The sign language hands at the bottom spell "apathy."
That much is clear. But why is it there? It could be in Sanskrit or anything else, so I'm hoping it's got something to do with the book.
I'm not sure if this was the designer's intent, but those signed letters do pose the question: would a (presumably non-blind) viewer be curious enough to figure out what the hands sign out?
Or does apathy win out?
Without knowing what the book is about, really, I am inclined to think that a more intriguing solution might have left out the figure with the gun, and worked with
just the hand-signed letteers spelling out [APATHY]
and then the rest of the title spelled out in er, "regular" letterforms.
[APATHY] + "and Other Small Victories"
This would be an edgier execution that would have really tested the apathy level of the audience, in my opinion.
Again, this is from a vantage point of ignorance so perhaps the final design is actually correct and my alternative proposal is crap.
(The figure with the gun reminds me of this page out of that giant Damien Hirst book. Hirst - or maybe that would be Barnbrook - did it funnier)
I agree with essrog in that replacing Apathy's Roman letterforms with just the signed letters might be more fitting, but at the same time if we really are that lazy, it might drastically impact how many people buy the book, no?
Good point! Perhaps the alternate solution gives the average consumer too much credit. Ha ha, too bad!
Well, far be it from me to suggest that the small victory in design should cost the publisher a financial defeat, so cheers for universal suicide man!
"would a (presumably non-blind) viewer be curious enough to figure out what the hands sign out?"
But . . . blind people can't see sign language, because they're blind.
Hate to be the guy who actually read the book, and thus ruin the mystery.
But the sign language is there because one of the main characters is a deaf lady, who teaches the protaganist basic sign language (mostly expletives)
Thanks for the info! Too bad the sign language doesn't say something dirty...that would have been pretty funny.
Read the fucking book you sloths.
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