|
Because I won't be blogging next week -- others will -- I've been cleaning house, reviewing a bunch of half-written posts that had been languishing in draft mode.
I had intended to publish Rex Bonomelli's design for Something to Tell You (top) after featuring the Faber & Faber UK edition (middle; original post here), but I never did. Jennifer Heuer's design for the forthcoming US paperback (bottom) is a good enough reason to post all three.
PS: Check out Faceout Book's interview w/ Rex.
Designer credits to come
On top, the hardcover. Below that, the paperback. I love seeing little tweaks like this. Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean & Britta) is a musician after all; why hasn't the guitar been there all along?
Hardcover designed by Jennifer Carrow
Paperback designed by Alexander Knowlton
Author and poet Sarah Manguso's memoir documents her battle with CIPD, which attacks the myelin sheath of the peripheral nerves.
Both designs are pretty wonderful (hardcover is first, paperback after that), and they give me another opportunity to quote John Gall on the difference in designing hardcovers and trade paperbacks. It's worth repeating:
"There is definitely more freedom in hardcover design. Hardcover sales are generally review driven, so the cover doesn’t have to come on as strong and, I think, less people buy them on impulse because of their price. They’ll read a review and look for the book. The paperback does not have the fortune of being timed to the review attention, so the cover—we’re talking front list here—has to say something like “Remember me? You were waiting for me to come out in paperback? Remember? I’m the one the New York Times really liked, you know, the one about the guy with narcolepsy who likes the girl in the plaid skirt. …”
Here's the first post featuring the Gall quotation and a less-successful-than-this example.
Released just in time for scary story season is Erika Mailman's historical novel of 16th c. German witch trials. I was really glad to see the paperback (first image below) get a refresh; the hardcover (second image) is graceful and serious but got lost in a sea of still being (over)done small-iconic-image-against-a-solid-background designs: examples here, here, here and here. This is definitely helped along by the asymmetry of the imagery and the placement of the title text, and it's always fun to look at negative space and try to find things. Anyone else see the evil bunny?
Buy this book at Amazon.com
It's a shame that Paul Sahre's lovely work for the hardcover (top) of Aoibheann Sweeney’s debut novel (review here) didn't make it to the paperback (bottom).
Paperback design by Rodrigo Corral
Phone messages play a large part in Lethem's novel, and in less talented hands this would a boring, stock-driven mess. But Rodrigo Corral doesn't exactly have less talented hands, does he? It jumps off the new books table; go find it if you don't believe me. Buy this book from Amazon.com
2007's hardcover, which I like even less now:
Design by Ben Gibson
The paperback edition of The Ghost Map is a beauty, and is even more impressive in person. The title text is lightly embossed, and the small pink dot is spot varnish. I'll leave it to those with better typographic sensibilities and talents than mine to figure out if things are a bit too busy, and if the typeface used for the title seems a little out of sorts with the rest of the design. It seemed a little jarring to me, but I've only seen it once. Regardless: striking. Go check it out. Buy this book from Amazon.com
Here's the hardcover:
A vast improvement over the hardcover (the second jacket below), with its boring stock photography and dubious choices in type. It might not be the prettiest thing in the world, but aping the college bulletin board works.
I'm hoping someone can identify the artwork used on this jacket. It's got a strong Utopian feel, doesn't it?
UPDATE: A reader kindly comments: "It's an illustration from Gulliver's Travels (not sure which edition), from the chapter in which Gulliver sees the flying island of Laputa." Thanks!
The new paperback:
Here is the hardcover design from almost exactly a year ago:
Designer name to come
A while back, I wrote about some of John Gall's designs and to an interview with him in Step Inside Design. One of the things he talks about is the difference in designing for hardcover and trade paperback:
"There is definitely more freedom in hardcover design. Hardcover sales are generally review driven, so the cover doesn’t have to come on as strong and, I think, less people buy them on impulse because of their price. They’ll read a review and look for the book. The paperback does not have the fortune of being timed to the review attention, so the cover—we’re talking front list here—has to say something like “Remember me? You were waiting for me to come out in paperback? Remember? I’m the one the New York Times really liked, you know, the one about the guy with narcolepsy who likes the girl in the plaid skirt. …”
The latter part of the above quote makes what's below that much more perplexing. The hardcover hits the astronaut aspect hard, which is right on w/ respect to the book:
Gall doesn't talk about what might be going on with paperback designs that take a different, almost unrecognizable approach (although disappointing sales is my first guess):
Would you think this is the same book? I certainly wouldn't.
Buy this book from Amazon.com
Design by John Gall
John Gall's designs for the Murakami paperbacks are some of my all-time favorites. If you're not familiar with them, check them out here. (And read the interview too; it's a good one.)
Here we see something equally wonderful but rather different going on: Murakami's name has been brought to the top, the focus on the face has been reduced, and the geometry is more rigid:
It's clearly different from, but more in tune with, another of Gall's covers:
Compare to the hardcover, which in many ways couldn't be more different than the new paperback and which is so good on its own terms.
The Girls Who Went Away was a favorite of 2006, so maybe the tweak of the design for the paperback was bound to be a bit of a disappointment. You certainly can't fault the publisher for punching up the title, but the skewing seems to be a change done just for the sake of change.
Here's the hardcover:
Buy this book from Amazon.com
Paperback designed by Patti Ratchford
Another recent paperback of one of last year's BDR favorites, this one with a very different feel. We're squarely in New York City with this cover, while the hardcover called out -- rather nicely, I think -- the Three Gorges Dam project in China, which figures in the plot. (The China aspect of the book explains the ornament at the top.)
The hardcover:
Buy this book from Amazon.com
|
|
