Movie ruined the book jacket !

We all have a treasured book that has been ruined by its adaptation to the big screen – but, personally, worse is when they ruin a beautiful, intriguing jacket with a still from the movie. Why ?!

There are, obviously, many ‘rules’ about what consitutes a great jacket design – but if we leave aside the pure design considerations for now (hard to do I know) – to me a great jacket design should echo the theme of the book – oh so subtly – but leave the rest up to your own imaingation.

Putting something so descriptive takes away the power from you, the reader, to interpret your own reading. The Road – Cormac CcCarthy’s incredible narrative – follows two unnamed protaganists and their journey through a post-apocalyptic world. The ambiguity of the original jacket captures this beautifully. The movie jacket? Not so much.

F.Scott Fitzgeralds

How beautiful are these dust jackets ! Penguin have published these sumptuous editions of F.Scott Fitzgeralds work to mark the 70th anniversary of his death. Art Deco is one of my favourite movements so these particularly resonate with me. And you can’t beat a bit of gold foiling …..

Check out all five here

Making Worlds

This is a beautiful piece of book design from Stockholm Design Lab, part of the visual identity they designed for the Venice Biennale this year. To communicate the concept, Making Worlds, they combined visual elements of flags from around the world. I love the graphic simplicity and variation of the jackets shown here. It reminds me of the work of the Russian constructivists – the interior spread shown even definitely reminds me of Alexander Rodchenko’s work.

See more of the book and identity they designed here

Going West

This animation for the New Zealand Book Council is possibly one of the most impressive and beautiful pieces of bibliophile-animation I’ve seen. The stop frame animation uses paper-cut outs within a book, creating scenery which enhances the narration of Maurice Gee’s novel Going West. An incredibly unique and very sophisticated pop-up book… Watch it here.

Isaac Tobin

 

I came across this beautiful book jacket design for The War on Words by Michael T. Gilmore. Further investigation into the book designer Isaac Tobin unearthed a whole treasure-shelf of beautiful and creatively conceived book jackets. I’ve attached a pic for Obsession A History by Lennard J Davis – the texture created using pinpricks through heavy cardstock is beautiful – you definitely can’t do that with an eBook ! Other jacket design favourites include An Ethics of Interrogation by Michael Skerker, The Fatal Strain by Alan Sipress and Piracy by Adrian Johns.

Tobin is the Senior Designer at the University of Chicago Press, and has also produced jackets for other publishers such as Penguin and Columbia University Press. Check out his work at www.isaactobin.com

All The Worlds a Page

I recently came across these beautiful ‘posters’. A design studio in the Netherlands have solved the question of how to fit an entire book onto a singe page … From Charles Darwin’s The Original Species to The Tragedy of Macbeth by Shakespeare – all pages are 70 x 100 cm – from a distance they look like intriguing walls of grey data but close up they are typographical works of art … www.all-the-worlds-a-page.com