For this exercise, we had to look at different book covers
and see if we could unpack why the designer chose the cover they did, and if
the images would have been easy to take photographically.
The Honeymoon’s Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage, and Divorced
by Andrea Chapin and Sally Wofford-Girand (2007)
This image is very simple, and is to depict a book that has
21 stories and give an idea of what all these stories are about. Burnt toast is
a great picture to symbolise problems in relationships in my opinion, it
represents things starting to go wrong. It matches the title as well. Using a
plain white background means the toast stands out a lot, and highlights the
burnt quality of the toast. The designer also chose to use all capital letters,
which kind of emphasises the title. The editors are written in a lighter font,
perhaps as they have not written the main text and the authors are more prominent.
It seems like one font but in different colours and sizes
has been used.
Missing Men by Joyce Johnson (2005)
This book is a memoir about women growing up with no fathers
as they lost them when they were small, and how the younger one, having also
grown up with no grandfather, looks for photos to see if she can piece together
her family. It also seems to be a story about how powerful family photos can be
and the secrets that can be kept, and if there are no photos of someone then
somehow they did not exist. The author also lost a husband and left the second
one, and so there has been a major absence or loss of men in her life. The
cover of the book shows a bed that has been slept in but currently has no
occupant, perhaps pointing to the loss of men in the author’s life. The pillow
is obviously well used but there is no-one there. The i in the title has been left
out, and the shape in the bed infers the missing letter. According to the book cover
archive, the fonts used are trade gothic and century. The designer (Joe
Montgomery) has used italics to highlight the author’s previous works, and has
included one review on the front to try and draw people in. The publisher logo
is positioned above the information in italics, quite prominent and obvious but
not distracting from the overall content of the photo.
NoVA by James Boice (2008)
This novel is set around the life of a teenager who hangs
himself, and what life in suburbia is like. It talks about how he came to die. It
is a comment on how America
is to live in and what goes on behind the scenes, even when things look good on
the surface. The cover is very cleanly shot, which seems to represent the
cleanness of suburbia. There is also a white picket fence, which of course
places the novel clearly in suburbia, and the sun is also just coming through
the fence. It is very minimalist. I think the image is inverted as the book is
from the perspective of someone who hanged themselves, maybe this is what their
last view of suburbia was. The designer was Paul Sahre, and the type is all in
Prensa. The title has a capital V and A at the end, perhaps because the story
is named after Northern Virginia where it is
set. Again, the designer has used italics to show a previous book by the same
author, and there is a lot of clean space at the bottom of the photo which has
not been disturbed with the writing.
The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi (2008)
This novel is about migration and how it can affect people,
the feelings of being disconnected. The image on the cover is inverted and is
of a street, perhaps representing a disconnected memory of a life in the past
that one of the characters had in a previous country. The cover for this was
designed by Rodrigo Corral, and it looks like the photo was taken specifically
for the cover, of a regular street at sunset. Interestingly, only one font,
copperplate, is used, in varying sizes and in capitals throughout. I am curious
that the author is written in a larger font than the title, drawing more
attention. This time, the author’s previous book is underlines rather than in
italics, still emphasised. There is a
review on the cover but due to the text size I almost missed it the first time
I studied the image.
A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis (2001)
This book sets out to answer the question “What is
love?” The image shows empty chairs in a
somewhat empty space and so we are drawn to look at them. The room they are in
has nothing much inside, and seems to be lit by windows on either side. One of
the chairs is resting on the other one, perhaps a symbol of love meaning one
person can lean on the other for support. All the text on the cover is
helevetica, and this has been placed inside a box at the top of the picture. It
seems again like the photo was shot especially for the book, and all they
needed was an empty space for the shoot, maybe in a studio. The designer chose
to put a review on the cover, maybe to highlight it.
Presence: Collected Stories of Arthur Miller (2008)
This is a collection of 6 stories, which all seem quite
varied and it is interesting to see that the book was named after the final
one, and the image seems more in keeping with this story than with the others. It
was also a compilation made after his death, and so may represent the feeling
that the author is still with us even though he is now dead. The image is
simple yet striking, a ghostly figure appearing from the fog. It definitely to
me fits the title of the book, knowing someone is there but them not being
clear. We are not told the fonts, but the author is at the top and in a much larger
font than the title again. The font used for the author is quite flamboyant, in
contrast with the plainness of the title, which is also all in capitals. There is
one review at the bottom in white text, which is not clear in the version I have
seen except that the review is from the Boston Globe, a prominent source.
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