On Design: Singular or Set
June 17
Last week the good folk over at The Millions raised the issue of author branding when it comes to book covers. That is, once an author has published X number of titles to reasonable success, should their publisher re-release these novels under a uniform design or keep each book unique? Examples that leap to mind are Kurt Vonnegurt’s covers from Dial Press, with their somewhat offbeat colours and giant, almost superman-like ‘V’ in the background, or even Bryce Courtney’s instantly recognisable branding (big gilt name, dull, generic photo as background).
C. Max Magee of the Millions seemed to think that, overall, individual book designs showed off better stuff. I think that’s true in some cases (particularly when you compare some of the awful sets from the eighties and nineties to their singular counterparts), but really it depends on the overall quality.
One good example of a uniform cover art is this backlist of Peter Carey novels, designed by Jenny Grigg for Random House. Her use of tissue paper cut-outs is totally unexpected and effective. There is a real delicacy to these figures to do with shadow and fold which I find more and more interesting the longer I look at them (The Tax Inspector and My Life as a Fake are favourites here). Grigg explains it best on her profile in Faceoutbooks:
‘After reading some of each novel to remind me of the tone, I made fairly quick cut-outs and manipulated them on a messy, paper-laden work surface. Sometimes folding or creasing the paper to add form. Carey’s idiosyncratic writing style urged me to keep away from depicting anything too literally. To give the writing breathing space, I saw quite abstract, symbolic illustrations suiting.’
I also love these Vintage covers (see below) of Haruki Murakami’s novels. As a huge Murakami fan, I admit I’m somewhat biased, but I think this set achieves exactly what a good design series should. The use of a very specific colour palette (white space, red, orange, black shadows) and modern images create a generic theme for each cover to experiment under while still remaining unique. Of course they’re not all great but I do think the covers for Kafka on the Shore, After the Quake, Dance, Dance, Dance, Norwegian Wood and The Elephant Vanishes do really well to capture the mood of Murakami’s prose. Also, the set together is visually striking and the Murakami ‘brand’ is instantly recognisable in a bookstore without being too in-your-face.
JA
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Comments
18 Jun 09 at 0:13
Great post, with two great examples in Carey and Murakami. I reckon I like the uniformity of what you call 'author branding' - each cover is instantly recognisable as that particular author's, but each cover also varies in its content that an analysis of it is still worthwhile. I wonder if you or anyone else can think of other successful 'author branding' attempts (assuming most of us agree that the above two do the job)?
...18 Jun 09 at 10:01
I quite like the author branding concept - and as a writer I think it would be a pretty special moment when your work was presented like that. It works really well in travel writing and other genre writing (though the quality varies greatly), because it's an instant indicator of the authorial style. Tim Moore, Josie Dew, Bill Bryson and Brian Thackeray all currently have branded sets and they have instant appeal to their particular audience niches.
...18 Jun 09 at 13:27
Here are some other examples of author/publishing house 'sets' from Penguin Classics. Some are good, some are awful: http://www.erasing.org/category/penguinmodernclassics/
Ishiguro and Winton are two other authors I can think of who have a certain amount of 'branding'. Although I've found most of their covers quite underwhelming...
...18 Jun 09 at 22:04
It's funny that Carey has the most amount of character on the cover. I don't think Grigg's second attempt at Carey's canon was quite as successful as the first, which I think will be held up for sometime as an exemplar of text illustration. Penguin seems to have the biggest back catalogue - the most collected works by a single author secured - to allow them to try this approach, mostly they go for similar photos and most fail in the way that generic cookie-cutter designs do. Updike's work in the 'Modern Classic' fold have small successes in the collection - The Centaur has a nice ghostly blue to it and it's hard to go wrong with the Rabbit novels - a basketball here, a car there. The Saul Bellow and Jack Kerouac rereleases didn't quite make the grade though.
I don't think the Murakami covers work - yes, they're a 'brand' - but that white is so utterly soulless and blank.
What about designers whose work could make a singular set? Chip Kidd has a book of his cover designs which I'd love to read. Updike wrote the forward. I think Griggs is moving towards achieving something similar.
...18 Jun 09 at 22:27
Forward me the foreword please...
...23 Jun 09 at 14:31
I like David Malouf's brown paper hardbacks. Ransom, with the donkey in profile in the bottom right corner, is particularly lovely.
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