Unconfessed

If good graphic design makes your eyes move around and creates great negative space, then this is pretty darn good graphic design.

"Biography" Is One of Those Funny Words

OK, so perhaps this is a bit too dorky to discuss, but "biography" is a funny word.

Check out the images below. On the jackets on the left you'll see "A Biography." On the jackets on the right you'll see "Books That Changed the World," which is the name of a series published by Grove. "A Biography" has been deleted from both images on the right.

You don't see the secondary definition of the word very often: "an account in biographical form of an organization, society, theater, animal, etc." Some reviews of the Janet Browne book include phrases such as "introduction to the book," "illuminating study," etc. So why isn't it just "An Introduction to Darwin's Origin of Species?" Or "On Darwin's Origin of Species?"

One of my favorite books -- Harry Crews' A Childhood: The Biography of a Place -- employs this neologistic use of the word "biography," and I've never really known what to make of it. But clearly someone at Grove thought "The Qur'an: A Biography" was a little confusing.

But what do YOU think?

When the NY Times Lets You Down...

there's always the Pocket Penguins. The David Lodge title is growing on me, and I'm trying to figure out if the balloon letters in the Steven Pinker title (see last image) are supposed to be forming a recognizable shape. Anyone?

The Last Jew

I absolutely love stuff like this. Not the type -- it's seriously lacking -- but the main illustration. Read a brief description from the Washington post and see if you agree:

A man mourning the loss of his son, Menahem, in Israel's 1948 War for Independence meets a veteran who offers him a poem that he says Menahem wrote.

The Madonna of Excelsior

There's a great article in the Sunday Magazine about post-Apartheid fiction. Zakes Mda is one of the authors discussed.

Freedom and Neurobiology

I guess that if you're looking to depict choice between two things, chocolate and vanilla probably do the trick.

The Secret of Scent

I wonder if the good people at Chanel have seen this yet. It really looks like an official publication.

Love Don't Live Here No More

Snoop Dogg, novelist. Actually, this doesn't get such a bad review. And y'know what? I like the cover. It would have been easy to thrown down a graffiti font and say "there you go...that's urban enough." But the designer didn't, so kudos to her or him.

Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet

Chinese and American culture meet. I liked this cover for a book that's sort of similar; this one looks like design-by-committee.

Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection

This is a cook book. This is a scary cook book, or at least a scary chef. And it's nice to know that architects don't have a monopoly on over-the-top artsy eyewear.