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Thursday, November 15, 2007

2007 National Book Award Winners

Tree of Smoke designed by Susan Mitchell; Time and Materials designed by Laura Klynstra; other designer names to come

Tree of Smoke
is my favorite here, and it's worth seeking out in the bookstore as a .JPG doesn't do justice to its vibrancy. If you've know the designer's names (other than Susan Mitchell), please share them with us in the comments.

Congratulations to the authors (obviously), but also to the designers. What a rush it must be to see your work in a photograph like this.





9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Time and Materials jacket was designed by Laura Klynstra.

Anonymous said...

Not sure what the theme of this post is, but I think it is a bit of a an overkill post. I like a lot of these, but can't say much about them all together. Tree of smoke is great in person. The design solution is bold and reminds me of poster art form mexico or something. I have the title and I like the quality of the paper.

Sherman Alexie is fun. That's about it. It says nothing to me.

Time and Travel is very nice. I love that cut of Modern and the cover has an overall pleasant feel. Kind of reminds me of Paul Buckley for some reason. Or maybe it's Gall?

The CIA book blows. But i can appreciate it's sellability and shelf appeal.

too many covers, so little time.

Anonymous said...

OK. Sorry, i get the post—these are winners of some award...

I would have never chosen Sherman Alexie's book or the CIA book. One is completely uninspired and the other a bit too floaty and ungrounded...

Francois Tremblay said...

Weird, after seeing all these great covers on this blog, and these are "winners"? They all suck.

jasfitz // the daily frolic said...

I, too need to add my agreement in. These covers are mostly really disappointing. I kind of like Time and Materials, but I don't think I would blog about it. It's appropriate, but not memorable. I find the rest of them very poorly executed, indeed. But if I recall, on FWIS Tree of Smoke was discussed some time ago, and I think the feedback was quite supportive...? I don't all all understand that.

Personally, I'm very disappinted by this batch. For a bunch of winners, the design seems quite sloppy.

Anonymous said...

uh, everyone does understand that the national book award is for content and not jacket design, right?

Joseph said...

Yeah, I thought I didn't have to explain that.

Anonymous said...

Cover design is an important element of the book...but lets not forget that its just the packaging, not the content.

Though there are always other books that deserve to win the National Book Award, I believe all of this year’s winners are worthy of a bit more respect.

I'm very irritated to see the reactions here. Cover design is not everything. A good book is a good book, even with a poorly executed cover.

Anonymous said...

LOL. So sad that some of the book design "experts" who commented on here have trouble with reading and comprehension. Or they don't know what the National Book Award is for.

Neither of which speaks very well for them as professionals.