A Book from France
Design by Benoit Leroux
Philippe Moreau, editorial director of Editions Danger Public in Paris, was nice enough to send this along. Roughly translated, it's "A Letter to the Sons of Immigrants."
As with most of the international titles I've posted, I've asked for a bit of background on the design and decision process, and Philippe shared this:
"We intended to show that immigration was not a topic to be discussed abstractly. Immigration is all about people, men, women and children coming to our country hoping for a better future. Poor people, like Nadir Dendoune's father coming from Algeria, and rich people, like Nicolas Sarkozy's father coming from Hungaria. Nadir Dendoune and Nicolas Sarkozy are the two main faces of immigration in France."
(Sarkozy is of course the new president of France; Nadir Dendoune is perhaps less known to American readers.)
I love the intensity of this cover and Philippe's comment about immigration not being an abstract issue. A quick search of the BDR archives shows a good example of what he didn't want his book to be:
Thanks, Philippe.
7 comments:
I'd like to see the production on this; the success of this cover for me would depend on how they went about it.
I hate to say this, but the later appeals to me more. There is nothing worse than pigeon holing your cover with images of people. Unless it's a famous, recognizable face. I understand the Human element. The first cover looks like a poster and you expect the home boy on top to be Ali G...
Love the french cover - the content intensity of these faces– and I relate completely to what Phillipe is talking about.
I just want to give a small présision about the translation from the french book : it's more "A letter to one son of immigrant".
My english is not so good, sorry.
It's not plurial in french. It's not a letter to any son of immigrant but only to one, and, looking at the book, it seems it's a letter to our president.
Also, a "lettre ouverte", directly translated by an "open letter" is a letter you adress to somebody, but you gave it to a news paper or any media for everybody to read it. Usually, an open letter is for a politic or somebody famous, not to your neigbourgh.
Hard to explain with my poor vocabulary, sorry, sorry, I hope you understand better. Maybe Ian S understand why there is those faces on the book.
OK. I get it now. Thanks for clarifying it. Good, strong contrast in the image choices.
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