Book Cover Archive blog

Is Design:Related the slowest site on the internet, or is it just me? My goodness, I know it is a free service but they might consider upgrading their servers.

I hate visiting portfolios over there because I know it’s going to be a solid 15 minute commitment just to work my way through their examples of work. Anyone else have this issue?

Lisa Fyfe, Art Director over at Henry Holt & Company, has new portfolio site up. You would do well to go give it a thrice over.

I’ve just added the Penguin Non-Classics cover for The Ballad of Abu Ghraib, and am curious to hear your thoughts on it. I find it timeless and wonderful, with a gravity rarely seen on the shelf. It is generic in its treatment in the same way that a Tschichold template is generic. Solid, well balanced, impactful. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if someone pointed out that this was an obvious reference to an older cover. Fire away, if so.

What’s your take?

Received an amazingly well-timed email this morning from the talented Parisa Tashakori, a graphic designer working out of Tehran. View all of her work here.

The political philosophy of feminism

Ordinary people of routine life

Your eyes are color’s spring

send Work of Dionysus

Jinns

Anyone who’s in Boston or looking to be in Boston should give this a twice over. More details here.

(Thanks to Mr. Camlin)

The winners are up.

On the one hand, it’s just silly that the AIGA of all people can’t post larger images on their site. On the other, I’m not about to go through and track them all down, so I can’t point the finger too hard. Sorry about that.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Metal Mother is the work of Matt Dorfman. I can’t find much information about the guy beyond:
(a) he’s a talented SOB, (b) he does a lot of editorial illustration work for Nicholas Blechman and Leanne Shapton at the NY Times.

His site
His blog.

1) The Archive component of this site is doing its best to be a comprehensive resource for all the best contemporary book cover design available. This blog, however, isn’t. This is partly because I’m lazy and partly because there are other great book cover design blogs out there that I just assume you’re reading. Generally speaking, I try and avoid relinking news or designs from other sites. The community just isn’t large enough to merit that kind of redundancy (in my opinion).

I occasionally get worried that I’m not doing a good enough job posting the excellent work being featured on other sites, but I’ve recently come to the conclusion that that’s ok. God Bradbury invented RSS for a reason, right? So in case you haven’t seen it in the Footer of the main Archive, here’s a list of other book cover blogs you should really be checking:

Let me know if you notice any that I’m missing.

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2) I’ve had a number of people ask me about my involvement with Covers, the blog I used to run at my old firm, Fwis. I did the majority of posts at Covers for over three years. It was and continues to be a great site. However, just to clarify, I’m no longer with Fwis and I’m no longer involved with their blog in any respect. I haven’t made a post there for going on 10 months.

Sometimes book cover designer, Sam Potts brings you Twitter on Paper. It’s closing up shop for good this Friday, so better get your order in quick.

As someone who’s in Cambridge on an almost daily basis, I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now. Alex Camlin has outdone himself with this ridiculously nice redesign for The Harvard Review, a semi-annual(?) literary magazine out of ole’ Crimson.

The new covers are printed on a nice, toothy uncoated stock, and the books are bound with printed endpapers that repeat the pattern and color of the issue number (circle) that wraps around the spine.

Looking forward to seeing where he takes future editions.

Wave Books is an independent poetry press based in Seattle, Washington. Dedicated to publishing the best in American poetry by new and established authors, Wave Books was founded in 2005.

They’re doing an exemplary job of treating each of their books as a unique experience, with a huge amount of care put into each title. I can’t help but feel that books like this are a glimpse into the future of publishing. While most popular titles will go straight-to-digital, there will be a steady market amongst bookophiles who cherish the physicality of their collections, rewarding publishers like Wave Books for their infatuation with the printed word.

Oodles of respect to this small press for making design a priority.

Design by Stewart A. Williams

Design by Mary Ruefle, with J. Johnson

Design by Mary Ruefle, with J. Johnson

Design by Franck André Jamme & Wave Books

Design by Franck André Jamme & Wave Books

Design by Quemadura

Design by Quemadura

Design by Quemadura

Design by Quemadura

Design by Quemadura

A Better Tomorrow, a new book from members of the online community Newstoday/QBN, is seeking to raise money for the Patrick O’Brien Foundation. As some of you know, the multi-talented Patrick O’Brien (AKA Transfatty) was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease a few years ago and is trying to raise money to help support his efforts to document his struggle.

It’s a great cause and what looks to be a great book. The publisher they had lined up has fallen through at the last moment and now they’re left dangling. If you know anyone in the publishing industry, or have access to a podium which you know is being read by the people in industry, considering helping out and mentioning this effort.

• A Better Tomorrow official site
• The Patrick O’Brien Foundation

Official trailer:

Meta-news regarding Peter Mendelsund:

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I just helped him put together a holding page while he figures out what to do with his new site.

…Oh c’mon. It’s funny.

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He’s got a new interview up over at Caustic Cover Critic:
Q: So how did you end up in design?
A: [...] Chip and I laugh now about our various expectations going into this meeting- he sees a LOT of work, and his feeling was: “Here’s another friend-of-a-friend whose substandard work I have to pretend to encourage” and for my part I was thinking “Book jacket design is the most ludicrous job I’ve ever heard of shy of poodle-wrangling, and who names their child Chip Kidd?”

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I got my hands on the Fall 2009 Knopf Catalog, which Mendelsund designed.
Holy crap.

A handful of updates to the Book Cover Archive worth mentioning:

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I’ve linked the Book Cover Archive to my twitter feed: twitter.com/pieratt
I’ve also put together a dedicated account in case you don’t feel like hearing about the other stuff that I’ve got going on (jerk!): twitter.com/thebca

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Since the launch of the site back in February I’ve added a couple portfolios to the “PORTFOLIO SITES OF BOOK COVER DESIGNERS” list in the mega footer on the Archive:

• High Design
• Christopher Brand
• Chin-Yee Lai
• Ben Wiseman
• David Gee

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We’ve recently added a small bit of functionality to the Archive. When available (not all that often), we’re going to start offering higher resolution versions of the covers. For example. I’ll be going back through and updating old posts to reflect this change as time allows.

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That’s it.