Creative Book Design- Part Two: Form and Function- Exercise 3: Book designers
1) Undertake a combination of library and internet research into the following designers, identifying a number of book cover designs for each. Reflect on their conceptual and/or expressive approaches to design. Write a very brief description of your selected cover designs and a brief overview of the designer - try to focus on keywords rather than long descriptions. Do this in note form, using the designer and the chosen example design to visually inform how the information appears in your learning log.
● Phil Baines
● Coralie Bickford-Smith
● Derek Birdsall
● Kelly Blair
● Irma Boom
● Suzanne Dean
● Julia Hastings
● Linda Huang
● Jost Huchuli
● Ellen Lupton
● Peter Mendelsund
● Paul Rand
● Paula Scher
● Jan Tschichold
● Wolfgang Weingart
2) Compare and contrast some of the cover designs. For example, how does the cover of Peter Mendelsund’s Kafka series compare with Coralie Bickford-Smith’s gothic horror series for Penguin? Are these expressive or conceptual in nature? Are they both conforming to genre expectations, or are they challenging them in some way? Do Jan Tschichold and Ellen Lupton’s cover designs have anything in common? Make a drawing, sketch or tracing of the covers you’re comparing to help give you a better understanding of the imagery, typography and arrangement within the design. Use your learning log to reflect on your comparisons, identifying which covers you think are the strongest and why.
3) Now, select three or more designers from the list that you are particularly drawn to, either because you like their work or because you don’t understand their approach, and research their design careers in more depth. Think about how they’ve responded to very different design challenges, whether they have an underlying conceptual and/or expressive approach, and how their work has evolved over time. Continue to use your learning log to record their work visually, explore these covers through drawing, and your responses in note format. See this as a quick fire activity rather than a long essay.
4) Finally, identify at least three different book designers you find visually engaging. To do this you might want to visit a library, bookshop, or browse online. Identify who designed these covers and find out more about them. Try to work out why you are drawn to them. Is it to do with genre or their approach to design? What is it about the design that captures you? What sort of imagery, if any, is used on the cover? How does the text relate to the image? What atmosphere or style does the cover evoke? Summarise your thinking in your learning log - focusing on the kinds of book covers you are drawn to and why - and continue to document what these covers look like.
Phil Baines:
Phil Baines’ work is very interesting. The way he uses typography is as if it is a medium itself. I love his dynamic positioning of type, using scale and colour to create visuals.
I was particularly drawn to the use of colour in the top right image on my mood board. I decided to emulate this to present some information on Phil Baines. The information used in the poster is a direct quote from Eye Magazine which I feel encapsulates some important information about Baines.
I used ‘Phil Baines’ and the numbers ‘98’ to create the visuals. I limited myself to 20 minutes and just using flat Photoshop type with no texture or images. This was in an attempt to emulate a similar feel to Baines’ work.
I ended up with 2 visuals, the time limit made it interesting as it was a forced ‘cut off’ point, leaving me with what I had. Working within time limits and not overworking things is something I struggle with, so used this exercise as an opportunity to improve.
Coralie Bickford-Smith
Coralie Bickford-Smith’s designs are quite conceptual in parts but also expressive. The flower/nature like patterns express certain emotions, which combined with colour represent the content of the book. The more conceptual ideas are again natural elements such as animals.
My presentation of the quotation from Bickford-Smith’s website was made using imagery from one of the covers I found interesting. Although this is almost a copy, I tried to stay within my 20 minutes and present the information in a way that emulated her use of texture and a ‘print making’ style.
Derek Birdsall:
I came across an article about Birdsall on Eye Magazine which is where the information on the left representation comes from. I chose 2 quotes which I feel encapsulates Birdsall (from the little I know).
I really enjoy his conceptual work and inclusion of the type of the front covers as a part of the overall design, as opposed to it being a separate element. Birdsall’s use of sans serif fonts and a limited colour palette creates some very ‘clean’ and engaging results.
Kelly Blair:
Blair’s style isn’t something that attracts me, but I really enjoy her use of colour. The colour palettes Blair uses work very well together, they are well balanced with a good amount of complimentary colours to contrasting in order to highlight important elements.
The use of silhouettes and shapes exaggerates these colours, which adds to her conceptual designs, eluding to the content of the books.
Irma Boom:
Irma Boom’s work looks very interesting. Her use of typography and colour is particularly inspiring. Boom’s work appears to focus on the creation and design of physical booms, drawing attention to texture and material as well as the visual design. Boom seems to of mastered the synergy between visual and physical design.
Suzanne Dean:
I love the use of texture within Dean’s work. The work is conceptual, yet the colours are very expressive. Dean uses a lot of polar end colours such as red and blue, which are strong at conveying certain emotions.
I tried to emulate these textures in a quick representation of one of her covers.
Julia Hasting:
Julia Hasting’s designs are brilliant. Her use of colour and texture is really impressive. Every design is very modern, yet tactile looking, something I aspire towards within my own designs.
I will definitely be looking into Hasting’s work and personal history further.
Linda Huang:
Lina Huang’s conceptual cover designs are very interesting. I love her ‘tactile’ approach to typography.
I really like the colour edit of the person in ‘Colson Whitehead’ and wanted to emulate this style along with the hand made font of the top right cover. I produced the writing using paint and scanned it in, later isolating the type and filling it digitally.
Jost Huchuli:
Jost Huchuli is a Swiss Typographer and Graphic Designer. His work is brilliant. I really love his choice of colour, and negative space.
His designs are quite literal but expressive in terms of their use of colour. Producing a response to this I wanted to capture the use of colour, I am not entirely pleased with the outcome (as with many during this task) but being quick within my time limit and capturing the creative’s work as a whole was the main goal.
Ellen Lupton:
I found a very interesting interview with Lupton here. Lupton is a multi disciplined individual; a designer, curator, writer. Her designs are very conceptual, including illustrations that elude to the contents of the books.
Lupton’s design ‘style’ is varied but doesn’t personally appeal to me. Despite this, her use of design to tell a message is excellent and inspiring.
Peter Mendelsund:
Peter Mendelsund’s work is extremely inspiring. He is multi disciplined and has developed a very sophisticated synergy between design, art and writing. Mendelsund’s work is very conceptual and emotive. His use of colour is very strong, and the collage style is interesting.
I will definitely look into Mendelsund’s work and personal history further.
Paul Rand:
Paul Rand’s contemporary appearing work is very impressive especially knowing that he produced a lot of it in the 1940s. There is a comparison to be drawn between the similar conceptual styles of Rand and Mendelsund, perhaps showing where Mendelsund had gained some inspiration from.
I wanted to emulate Rand’s ‘eye’ for design by using an image of him when he was young, and when he was older broken up into circles.
Paula Scher:
I had seen Paula Scher’s work before, but wasn’t aware of her name. Her work is very bold and uses varied typography. The typography is very dynamic and informs the illustrations in an interesting way. Scher’s conceptual style is backed by the emotive use of colour.
Jan Tschichold:
The ‘first english translation’ of ‘The New Typography’ is a book I came across at the beginning of my OCA course and I was amazed at how modern Tschichold’s work appeared. He really was a pioneer creating sans serif type faces.
Tschichold’s work is very sophisticated in it’s compositions and use of colour. The negative space Tschichold used as shown in ‘DIE FRAU…’ and ‘PHOEBUS FILM’ is a great example of his balanced designs.
Wolfgang Weingart
Having reading briefly about Wolfgang Weingart I found that he passed away very recently. His work is excellent, it is very expressive and he uses typography as it’s own medium. Weingart disassembles letters to create very interesting visuals.
2) Compare and contrast
I feel that the cover by Hochuli is most affective. The integration of concept and imagery within this front cover is my reasoning for thinking that it is the strongest. The black line leads the viewer in navigating the page to each element, then shaping into a question mark, which is very interesting conceptually. The layering of the imagery and use of negative space also interests me, the cover is top heavy yet seems balanced by the black square at the bottom of the page.
I feel that Linda Huang’s cover is the strongest. I do not personally enjoy the aesthetic, or the colour choice but I definitely understand why and see how it ties into the concept behind the cover. The imagery of the cracked egg is also very strong and again adds massively to the concept. I feel that with Kelly Blair’s cover ‘The Painter’ the paint marks are too ‘obvious’ of imagery to use despite me preferring the aesthetic and the more expressive style.
I really like both of these covers. In my opinion the strongest is Paul Rand’s. The less obvious conceptual imagery and expressive colours is very sophisticated. I love the tactile feel, and the way the image is ‘cut’ to form another shape.
3) Further research
Irma Boom:
I found a very interesting interview of Irma Boom talking through her favourite work in chronological order. I made notes throughout the interview, whilst sketching some of her other book covers.
Julia Hasting:
I have began to specifically look on Youtube for documentaries/videos including designers. There are many unwatched videos with some great information. This video is Julia Hasting describing a few of her most known work through time, and her work at Phaidon.
Peter Mendelsund:
I found a really interesting talk Mendelsund did at The New York Society Library. He presents many of his book covers and describes some of the key design choices for each.
Mendelsund’s view upon design is inspiring. The conceptual imagery and expressive colour within in work is very unique and sophisticated. His ‘style’ is varied dependant upon the subject or content, but when collated together it is still obvious that it is by him.
Mendelsund also paints, I came across these abstractions via his website. His experimental use of colour and composition only adds to his design work. His overall more abstract approach to design is very interesting.
4) Further Artists:
Dieter Roth:
Dieter Roth was an artist from Switzerland born in 1930. He was a poet, sculptor, artist and a book maker. He began the ‘artist’s book’ style with his interesting and personal journals, which appear very expressive and emotive. Roth claimed that he is a writer and his art merely ‘supports my habit’ which I think is brilliant. Roth’s skills were so integrated that they were fluid across multiple mediums.
Roth’s physical art was very conceptual, and expressive. I came across an article on the MoMA website linking to multiple videos describing some of his work. Roth’s name (pronounced ‘rot’) is poetic in itself, he used food stuffs such as chocolate and cheese to create work that decayed over time.
Roth’s expressive and poetic approach is what draws me towards his work. His use of colour is captivating, he uses hand drawn elements, lines/words/sketches accompanied with paper, imagery and other textures to achieve interesting visuals.
Mike Mcquade:
I have selected a few of my favourite covers above. The colours Mcquade uses for his covers and in general, include iterations of red and blue. His covers are both conceptual and expressive. The varied portrait imagery is what attracts me, the use of eyes and layered silhouettes is very strong conceptually. I really love Mcquade’s synergy of physical and digital elements.
Mike Mcquade is an American designer and Illustrator. His design skills and applications vary, he illustrates for the New Yorker, produces book covers for Wired magazine and runs a design studio called ‘The Mcquades’.
On Mcquade’s Instagram he documents another side of his process: creating illustrations as ‘art’. He creates large collages collating screen printing, printed images and painting. The more abstract approach Mcquade takes with his book covers is only more interesting when viewing his art and collage work.
Nazario Graziano:
Graziano’s conceptual style is very distinguishable. He uses collage, physical/digital techniques to create interesting book covers. These are a few that I found the most interesting. Graziano’s use of colour is very strong. He uses a minimal background with some tactile textures/gestural paint marks which express the content of the book or illustration. The images themselves tie into the concept of the work, sometimes incorporating the title into the visual.
Nazario Graziano is a freelance designer, illustrator and art director from Italy. “I take my inspiration from old books, illustrations for kids, sky, snow, rain and rainbows, my little princess Bianca, my wife, my cats, music, old-school skateboards, traditional tattoos, 80′s memories, 50′s sci-fi movies, typography and so much more that happens day by day…” taken from his website.
I found a great interview he did via Instagram where he describes his passion for traditional tattoos, sci-fi films and how it relates to work he has produced for many clients including New York Magazine, Washington Post, Rolling Stone and National Geographic.
Similarly to the reasons I am drawn to Mcquade and Roth’s work, it is the tactile elements and use of colour that attracts me to Graziano’s covers. Graziano has a great synergy between physical and digital techniques with a distinct style.
