Archive for November, 2009

The Spook House

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

An amazing student project from designer Tom Petty (best URL ever?)

…I therefore decided to hand-draw the type in a traditional style seen on signs of the period, so I had to cut all of the letters by hand with a scalpel out of 400 gsm (140 lb) board and run it through a traditional press.

See more over at For Print Only.

Thanks Alison!

Top Ten of Covers of the ’00s

Monday, November 16th, 2009

To summarize a decade’s worth of brilliant design with 20 covers is little more than an exercise in futility. We can all agree, however, that the best part of passing into a new digit bracket is the lists that come with it. This collection is little more than a representation of my own tastes, but I tried to choose works which were representative of their respective years.

I beat myself up quite a bit when putting this together, but there are still a handful of notables worth mentioning:

- Any of gray318‘s covers for Safran Foer.
- Any of Kidd or Gall’s covers for Murakami
- Anything from Henry Sene Yee
- Anything from Paul Buckley or Darren Haggar over at Penguin US.

2000

The Abomination, Chip Kidd
Art Direction by Carol Devine Carson

Runner-up
Faster, Jamie Keenan
Art Direction by John Gall

2001

A General Theory of Love, John Gall
Photographer, Boris Schmalenberger

Runner-Up
The Darkness and The Light, Chip Kidd

2002

The Egg Code, Evan Gaffney
Art Direction by Carol Devine Carson

Runner-up
Lullaby, Rodrigo Corral

2003

Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth, Chris Ware

Runner-up
Oryx And Crake, John Gall

2004

A Shortcut Through Time, Peter Buchanan-Smith

Runner-up
Killing the Buddha, Paul Sahre
Photograph by Jason Fulford

2005

Murder, gray318
Representative of the Penguin 70th anniversary box set.

Runner-up
Book One, Mark Melnick
Art Direction by Chip Kidd

2006

The Prisoner of Guantanamo, John Gall

Runner-up
Race Riots, David Drummond

2007

Exile and the Kingdom, Helen Yentus
Art Direction by John Gall
Representative of the Camus Series

Runner-up
One Perfect Day, Evan Gaffney
Art direction by Darren Haggar

2008

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, David Pearson
Representative of the Penguin Great Ideas series.

Runner-up
Obsession, Isaac Tobin
Illustration by Lauren Nassef

2009

The Way Through Doors, Helen Yentus, Jason Booher
Art Direction by John Gall

Runner-up
The Original of Laura, Chip Kidd

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Feel free to tell me how wrong I am in the comments.

Ice on the Moon Ice on the Moon

Friday, November 13th, 2009

In honor of this momentous occasion, I give you two great covers:

cat's_cradle

Photograph by Mike Venables. Seen at CCC.

Danzig talks books.

Friday, November 13th, 2009

..lots of great werewolf stories in here.. all documented. All true.

Yes!

(Is his library in his pool room? What’s going on with the lighting?)

Seen at Modcult.

Man & Space redesign

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Eric Zelinski, aka OBNX.MUTE, redesigns the Time Life classic, Man And Space, for class. I hope his teachers at Ringling are freaking out over this.

bca_manspace_1

bca_manspace_2

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Gall & Co. put Nabokov on display

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

…each box would be filled with paper, ephemera, and insect pins, selected to somehow evoke the book’s content. And to make it more interesting for readers — and less daunting for me — I thought it would be fun to ask a group of talented designers to help create the boxes.

Holy moly.

bca_nabokov

Congratulations to Ben Wiseman

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Mr Wiseman, one of the stupidly talented designers at Rodrigo Corral Design, has earned himself a spot in this year’s ADC Young Guns lineup.

Check out his [excellent] submitted book covers here.

9,233,188 glyphs later

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Fontshop turns 20 this year. As they are both amazing and the provider of all the font-related metadata on The Book Cover Archive, I think it’s more than appropriate that we all burst out into commemorative song.

(While youre priming the vocal chords, check out their fantastic celebratory website in honor of the occasion.)

bca_fontshop_20_years

A type treatment waiting for a book cover

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Abcity Typo by Borja Bonaque

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