J-Horror, or is it J Horror?
Design by Chip Kidd (I'm pretty sure)
One of the things I find most frustrating about doing this site in addition to my day job (send your offer to become Grand Patron of the BDR here :-)) is that I do too much looking for material online and not enough in bookstores. Thus, I would love to tell you that I'm sure Chip Kidd designed this (it's published by Vertical, so I'm 99% sure it's his) and that the title is J-Horror and not J Horror, but alas, I can't. I have to go to work. 
What I can tell you: 1. the version with the hyphen is from the Vertical site and is probably the "real" one, and 2. I think this is pretty sweet. Isn't this why people who love graphic design really love it -- that eureka moment when you realize that the picture of the eye you started with contains a nice "J" for the title?
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10 comments:
I would never know to look for a J on this cover! It's a very pretty image. Is "J horror" a well-known genre among its fans?
Definitely. I'm no expert, but tons of US horror films of the last 5 years or so (The Ring, Dark Water, etc.) were originally J-Horror films. As far as using "J (hyphen)...", the first time I saw it was on the jlist.com site.
Ooops, no hyphen on that URL, but you know what I mean. It's all about the J. :-)
Well that makes a lot more sense! Color me out of the loop.
hmm. it's clever but a bit illegible if you don't know what "j horror" is. perhaps if the designer somehow worked the orange color into the eyebrow to tie it all together it would make more sense.
I'm guessing that one of the reasons they may have decided to hyphenate it in the long run is to make it clear to the reader who is unfamiliar with the term. The title wouldn't be -Horror, so they then would hopefully realize it's a 'J'.
I have to say, that I would never see a "J" on this cover either. And while it is a witty moment to find out that that is what it is, I have to say it is pretty amateur as a design treatment... We have type face for this. The eye brow should have been a nice typeface. It would have worked just as well—without all the confusion of image and letter-form.
I too think that the hyphen helps this, but some of you may be right: maybe it just doesn't work all that well. Good discussion, though!
Simple, nothing exciting.
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