Good luck boys and girls!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
New Synopsis for "The Lucky Country"
Australia. At first glance the bystander knows that it is a land of golden beaches, golden beers and good mates. A land where getting rich is getting lucky, getting lucky is getting girls and getting girls is getting the dream. Whether or not this is a true representation, it is what Australia is perceived as.
This Australian classic written in 1968 shakes the shackles of the Australian mediocrity and sets forth arguments of how Australia is more than what is understood from first glance. For author Donald Horne the Australian way of life is more than these superficial ideals, he comments on Australia's dud democracy, the hypocrisy that lies in the ideal of 'fair go', the apathetic mindset of our culture and the disenfranchised intellect.
If you're an Australian struggling with their identity, a foreigner trying to discern the real Australia, or a curious bystander than you need to look no further that Donald Horne's "the Lucky Country'. As it turns out, Horne's 1968 Australia is extremely similar to yours of today.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Self Directed research
I decided it would be a good idea to do some research on the shelves of Borders and Smiths in the city to find out a few of things. These were:
- What colour seemed to jump out off the book shelf?
- What colour's weren't in use on the book shelf.
- What makes a book covers fit together as a series.
I took as many photo's as I could before I got kicked out of Borders, the number ended up at around about 40, which took about 10 minutes to get together. I asked for shots at Smiths bookstore and they were nice enough to let me photograph their collections.
What I learnt:
- Book genre will greatly effect the colour of a book cover.
- Solid colours tend to stand out the most.
- Sans-serif grabs more attention than serif fonts.
- Compositions should lead the viewer's eye to the center of the cover, to retain their attention.
- Books will grab more attention when the viewer can see the cover, as opposed to just the spine.
- Faces grabbed my attention most.
Specifics.
First collection:
Teen and Young Adult.
- Darker covers
- Ambiguous imagery
Admittedly I only got a very small proportion of the young adult shelves. Since the rise to fame that Twilight has achieved there seems to be more of a trend to adopt a darker book cover.
Second Collection:
Sport.
- Tends to be more of a baggy green theme occurring in these shots. Even on the covers that feature footballers there is more of a green theme. Often this is accompanied by gold text.
- On the boxing cover that you see off center of the shelf we see a black and white photo image of a boxer standing over his opponent.
- Lots of white and darker colours on the book shelves of the sporting world.
I'm going to assume that the colours change on the sports books depending on which nationality the sports men (or women) represent. The classic green and gold theme is constant throughout the Australian sporting covers. These colours are used to evoke a sense of nationality and to associate the individual to a greater extent with his team.
Third Collection
Crime:
- Lots of black
- Sans-serif fonts
Again there is a strong theme throughout the crime section of dark hues. The books that stood out most to me on the shelves were the covers that went against this mold and produced white covers.
Fourth Collection
Fiction:
- A complete gamut of colours occurs here.
- Most attention grabbing are the book covers that either feature solid colours or faces.
Book Collections.
Penguin books (75 popular penguins):
- Rule of thirds stands out strongly on the covers.
- Two orange stripes at top and bottom surrounding a white centered strip
- Sans-serif center aligned font is used on the covers.
Whilst being extremely consistent I get the feeling if placed on a shelf this collection would recede against all the vibrant stand out's in the other photo's. The problem being that there is no extraordinary contrasts. Whilst the sans-serif fonts are easy to read, the lack of any imagery to reinforce the books title would make wading through the books to find a specific name would be difficult.
Twilight
- Consistent and unusual typographic treatment of the title
- Consistent (ambiguous) imagery presented
- Predominant use of the same black throughout the titles.
The twilight series features ambiguous covers, which personally I am not fond of. However it hits it's demographic well, immediately identifying the tone of the book (angst ridden and probably rubbish [there I said it]). The branding aspect of the series is consistent, typographically the titles are all written in the same font and all treated to the same silver overprint.
Underbelly
The underbelly book series provides us with the perfect example of what not to do when trying to unify a book covers identity. There are three culprits on the top and second shelves, inconsistent typefaces and layouts all seem to point to a totally unlinked series of books. Even imagery and colour is not used consistently on these book covers.
Penguin Classics
- Consistent layout.
- Consistent colour used within various positions of the layout
- Consistent style within the imagery
Well produced series of covers that create a unified identity
Sorry this read has probably been incredibly arduous and long. These are my own findings from an excursion into a couple of book stores in my city. The only data I have to back up my findings are from the photo's that have been linked to. I went on this excursion after reading a chapter of Tschicolds "The New Typography" within which he advised to stand out we must go against the norm of what is in the books environment. I intend to do just that with my book covers.
I hope you like my findings from this excursion,
Thanks for reading
Andrew
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Book cover reviews
First book cover
Odyssey
Typography:
Is the text in a logical ordering?
The text is positioned logically however font sizes disrupt a logical hierarchy. Typographically the words lack any clear grouping; we have Odyssey, Homer, then an acknowledgment of who translated the book and who the introduction was done by grouped together. There is no clear hierarchy of information and too much emphasis is placed upon the details that don't really matter (translator and introduction). There is little contrast between the translators name and the colour of the moon which makes this text difficult to read.
Imagery:
When we are told of the roman philosopher and writer Homer immediate assumptions about roman history arrive. The topic of Odyssey may well be space, and the word odyssey evokes the feeling of space (illustrated by the movie title "2001 a space odyssey"), but in the realm of a persons assumptions the imagery is simply inappropriate. An image somehow depicting ancient Rome, the Italian country side or a more striking image of Homer's ideals would have been more appropriate. A photo of earth from the moon seems trivial for a book written around before 300bc, and is more suited to a topic such as the moon landing. The image on this book would not make me want to pick it up.
Image and Text:
It is not clear whether the imagery dominates over the text in this layout, instead of working harmoniously though they seem to compete against each other. If the ordering was to be improved on this book jacket less emphasis would be placed upon the translator and introductory author, and some form of grouping would be applied to the different sections of the page. There would be a clear distinction between the words "Homer" and "Odyssey".
Second Book.
Bush on the Couch.
Typography
There is no Title or Author on the front page of this book. Instead it relies on a question mark, with the head of George Bush as the dot. This achieves a very striking cover that immediately tells you the topic of the book as opposed to the name of the book. Presumably the title "Bush on the Couch" is written on the spine.
Image
Assuming that the book is asking a question about George Bush the image convey's perfectly the meaning of the book. The red colour on the cover would stand out on a book shelf full of political literature, which tends to stick to more conservative colours.
Image and Text
Perfectly suited to one another the image is inter-woven into the text on this books cover. There are no improvements that I could think of to go with the execution of this books cover.
Third Book
The Captive Mind
Typography
This books typography comes straight out of the school of Jan Tschicold. It is positioned in at the top of the page and as such is the first thing that is read. A clear Hierachy is established through the use of changing font sizes, which are weighted perfectly against the vertical and horizontal lines that make up this books cover.
Image
In this case the image was generated purely from the imagination of Paul Rand. Featuring vertical and horizontal lines that meet at 90 degree angles Paul rand outlines in an abstract manner the shape of a head. To reinforce the idea of a face he adds two purple splotches behind the bars to represent eyes.
Image and Text
Image dominates this page, grabbing the viewers attention. The strong narrow typeface Rand used synthesizes well with the lines that populate the rest of the page and in an abstract sense become part of the imagery. If anything could be better on the cover of this book (though I do believe it would be blasphemy to touch such a brilliant design) it would be the placement of the authors name. Two lines at the top and bottom of the x height in the words "the captive mind" are intesected by the authors name, possibly Rand could have placed the words along the same lines, to create more unity through the composition in the top box.
Odyssey
Typography:
Is the text in a logical ordering?
The text is positioned logically however font sizes disrupt a logical hierarchy. Typographically the words lack any clear grouping; we have Odyssey, Homer, then an acknowledgment of who translated the book and who the introduction was done by grouped together. There is no clear hierarchy of information and too much emphasis is placed upon the details that don't really matter (translator and introduction). There is little contrast between the translators name and the colour of the moon which makes this text difficult to read.
Imagery:
When we are told of the roman philosopher and writer Homer immediate assumptions about roman history arrive. The topic of Odyssey may well be space, and the word odyssey evokes the feeling of space (illustrated by the movie title "2001 a space odyssey"), but in the realm of a persons assumptions the imagery is simply inappropriate. An image somehow depicting ancient Rome, the Italian country side or a more striking image of Homer's ideals would have been more appropriate. A photo of earth from the moon seems trivial for a book written around before 300bc, and is more suited to a topic such as the moon landing. The image on this book would not make me want to pick it up.
Image and Text:
It is not clear whether the imagery dominates over the text in this layout, instead of working harmoniously though they seem to compete against each other. If the ordering was to be improved on this book jacket less emphasis would be placed upon the translator and introductory author, and some form of grouping would be applied to the different sections of the page. There would be a clear distinction between the words "Homer" and "Odyssey".
Second Book.
Bush on the Couch.
Typography
There is no Title or Author on the front page of this book. Instead it relies on a question mark, with the head of George Bush as the dot. This achieves a very striking cover that immediately tells you the topic of the book as opposed to the name of the book. Presumably the title "Bush on the Couch" is written on the spine.
Image
Assuming that the book is asking a question about George Bush the image convey's perfectly the meaning of the book. The red colour on the cover would stand out on a book shelf full of political literature, which tends to stick to more conservative colours.
Image and Text
Perfectly suited to one another the image is inter-woven into the text on this books cover. There are no improvements that I could think of to go with the execution of this books cover.
Third Book
The Captive Mind
Typography
This books typography comes straight out of the school of Jan Tschicold. It is positioned in at the top of the page and as such is the first thing that is read. A clear Hierachy is established through the use of changing font sizes, which are weighted perfectly against the vertical and horizontal lines that make up this books cover.
Image
In this case the image was generated purely from the imagination of Paul Rand. Featuring vertical and horizontal lines that meet at 90 degree angles Paul rand outlines in an abstract manner the shape of a head. To reinforce the idea of a face he adds two purple splotches behind the bars to represent eyes.
Image and Text
Image dominates this page, grabbing the viewers attention. The strong narrow typeface Rand used synthesizes well with the lines that populate the rest of the page and in an abstract sense become part of the imagery. If anything could be better on the cover of this book (though I do believe it would be blasphemy to touch such a brilliant design) it would be the placement of the authors name. Two lines at the top and bottom of the x height in the words "the captive mind" are intesected by the authors name, possibly Rand could have placed the words along the same lines, to create more unity through the composition in the top box.
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