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Friday, August 28, 2009

Five for Friday, 8.28.09

The second "Five for Friday," a commentary-free* post featuring 5 covers that have recently caught my eye.

*That is, no commentary from me. You, of course, should comment. 9 comments last week? C'mon...start typing :-)

The Gone-Away World, design by Evan Gaffney:
(check out the entire spread here)


Ripped designed by Paul Sahre:


Timbuktu, designer name to come:


The Nightingales of Troy, design by Kelly Blair:


The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy, design by Isaac Tobin:

18 comments:

Ian Koviak said...

Gone Away World: Colors are wonderful. Over the years I've become less and less of a fan of this angled type treatment—but in conjunction with the odd angle and rays, it all kind of works...

RIPPED: What can I say; Paul Sahre. Fun idea, simple, witty execution.

Timbuktu: Geez, can a cover really go wrong with a image like that?

Nightingales: Every version of this cover I've seen has the "cut-and-paste" look to it. I'm curious to read just to find out what that is all about. Otherwise, a very attractive cover. The hand-done quality, folded paper and repetition and direction of the birds works great to warm the eye up to the page.

Greek: Tobin is a master of these simple, effective graphic solutions. I mean, is there a more pleasing way to say this without being trite as shit?

Ian Koviak said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
V. said...

Gone Away World: somehow catchy but not really readable. I'm also quite tired of these cover-in-a-cover thing.

Ripped:I like the idea more than the result.

Timbuktu: Awesome photo. Don't know how well it applies to the book since I've not read it.

The Nightingales of Troy: Like the montage and idea but somehow not really the overall result... maybe because of the text placement.

The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy: Simply wonderful. Clearly my favorite.

Anonymous said...

Sahre reminds me of Keenan's Hornby cover

http://www.keenandesign.com/keenan%20ukf1.html

danup said...

Love Gone Away World.

Ripped is unfortunately anachronistic—I don't know anybody who burns cds anymore, let alone writes on them in magic marker. This is more Memorex than iPod.

M said...

I love the Nightingales cover. I, too, am very curious to read it just by seeing the cover.

About the cover of Timbuktu, the image of the dog is very appropriate, since the hero and narrator of the book is... well, a dog. But it is also kind of too literal in my opinion.

Melissa Dominic said...

The Gone-Away World one is good, but, not as good as the original hardback cover (which i liked even less than the UK cover).

I like the color on the Ripped one, but, I think otherwise I don't care either way for it.

I'm also now interested in what this Nightingales of Troy is about. I think I like this cover a lot.

Joseph said...

"Tobin is a master of these simple, effective graphic solutions."

Amen, brother.

Ann said...

Gone Away World, I'm not of fan of the skew, but the color and layering gives it a nice richness

Ripped: I love the casual handwritten font, it's just messy enough. It's REALLY HARD to find a good one that doesn't feel forced.

Timbuktu: I don't even understand this. Maybe I need to know the author, but the dog isn't workin' for me.

The Nightingales of Troy: I love the color choices. It pops nicely and there's a nice sense of rhythm going.

The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy: My absolute favorite of the bunch. I was impressed just by the graphic pattern, and then blown away when I finally realized that it was a theater. Smart, sharp and witty—just how I like 'em.

Joseph said...

Re the Timbuktu cover: "In Timbuktu Paul Auster tackles homelessness in America using a dog as his point-of-view character."

There have been several covers for this book (US and overseas), with all manner of dogs, but this one just sort of hit it on the head for me. The Amazon description describes "Mr. Bones" as "a mutt of no particular worth or distinction."

Your escalator operator said...

Ripped cover appeals to me, but I think it would have been better with just a little less text - specifically the "cassette," "compact disc," and "iPod" labels seem pretty unnecessary.

Anonymous said...

"Gone Away World" is by Evan Gaffney

Joseph said...

Thanks for the Gaffney info!

Jason Gabbert said...

Timbuktu dog = amazing!!!

Anonymous said...

Timbuktu dog looks so smart you could imagine he wrote the book.

Anonymous said...

The Gone-Away World:
Great use of different axes and the projection of the title; however, on screen, I had a problem reading the review.

Ripped:
The concept of combining an "old-looking" and the handwritten element in this way would have me wanting to frame the cover.

The Nightingales of Troy:
I love the concept and the execution. The use of the set of "cut-out" illustrations of birds stuck with tape would have me reading the book just because of the cover.

The theatricality of Greek Tragedy:
It does follow on the lines of a "classical" tradition but a I would expect a more dramatic execution; as it is, it's a bit of an understatement and this has nothing to do with theatricality or Greek Tragedy.

Jessup said...

Greek Tragedy:

This is a really great design. Really clean and just sharp all the way around. That box around the author's name is almost too big. The corners are just close enough to the semi-circle that your eyes want to make them meet, which is a little harsh. But overall this design is quite clever.

Dayna said...

The Ripped cover works better if you see the back cover as well which continues the timeline of recorded music. It features an 8-track and a very large LP which includes the praise blurbs.