The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia

When you've got a schnozz, um, profile as recognizable as Dylan's, you can get away with having no text on the front cover.

Icebergs

Frequent readers know that this is the kind of Photoshoppery of which I am just not a fan.

Collected Stories of Amy Hempel

Repetition as a design tactic often produces brilliant results, but not here. And this further convinces me that vertical type almost *never* works.

The Dead Fish Museum

Why is dead in italics? Beats the heck out of me.

Does This Look Familiar to Anyone?

So I'm at a trade show and conference in DC and I walk by the HP booth. And I see something like this:



Ring a bell? It should: compare this (and other similar graphics at the HP.com site) to Jonathan Gray's cover of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close:



Is this a blatant, um, homage to Gray, or has he brought the whole hand and finger thing over to corporate advertising? There's no mention of anything other than book design on his Web site.

(Thanks, Keith, for the screengrab.)

The Attack

Quick, someone run to the bookstore. What *is* that dark figure?

This week

Traveling on business for the next week; updates will happen but may be sporadic.

Inhuman Bondage

I understand why so many kinds of type were used -- to emulate a poster from the era -- but that used for the word "inhuman" just doesn't look like it fits.

Translation Nation

First posted almost a year ago as a hardcover, the paperback just came out w/ the same cover, which I like. Who knew that this subject would become just a little more important... :-)

Competitive Eating

If you think "Horsemen of the Esophagus" isn't a great title, there's something wrong with you. Sorry :-)

I do like that there's a bite missing from one of the hot dogs on the "Eat This Book" cover. Ah, it's the small details...