Face of the Book

Bosman discusses how making print books worth collecting can encourage readers to choose them over e-books. One example is 1Q84, which comes “wrapped in a translucent jacket with the arresting gaze of a young woman peering through.” The translucent material gives the book a sense of mystery. Bosman notes that the hardcover had sold 95,000 copies, compared with 28,000 e-book copies. Maybe the design had something to do with that. As Julian Barnes puts it at the end of the article, “it has to look like something worth buying and worth keeping.” I found a photo of the book design online:

I completely agree with this idea. But browsing bookstores in the U.S. feels different from browsing bookstores in China. I don’t know if it’s a matter of taste or different target audiences, but honestly, I find a lot of American book covers pretty ugly. I rarely see a cover that makes me want to own the book just for its design. And when I do, it usually costs a ridiculous amount.

I’m all for putting thought into book covers, but I really dislike belly bands, those strips of paper wrapped around books. I see them a lot on books published in China, and they always get in the way when I’m reading, although I do end up using them as bookmarks. They’re often covered with blurbs, awards, sales figures, and endorsements from famous people, telling you how worth reading the book is before you’ve even opened it. Sometimes they cover up the actual cover design, and they slide around or get bent while you’re holding the book. Even when the cover is beautiful, that extra strip can feel unnecessary, unless there’s an actual design idea behind it.

Chip Kidd’s TED Talk was really funny. I loved his question, “What do stories look like?” He’s so creative, and the way he talks about design makes it sound as simple and playful as a game. I especially liked his comparison of a book cover to a haiku of the story. Designing the covers of a comics series so they connect to form a larger image is such a clever idea. It would definitely make people want to collect the whole set. I also liked his idea that a book designer is a kind of translator, turning the written content into something visual. 

Kerry