Not signed in (Sign In)

Printheads: Examples of great book design?

Bottom of Page

21 to 40 of 88

  1. <
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. >
  1.  (60.1)
    I'd love to see and hear about examples of books that have really caught your eye while browsing, or hardcovers/collections with such a great look and feel that you bought them even though you already had the material, or anything else that has jumped out at you lately in the area of book design.

    I'm not thinking just about comics/trades -- any book you think is nicely designed is welcome.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJaredRules
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.2)
    Almost all of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern
    •  
      CommentAuthorARES
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.3)
    Pale Fire
    •  
      CommentAuthorlamuella
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.4)
    Halting State by Charles Stross. The cover online was so brilliant that I ended up not just preordering it, but reviewing it for my local newspaper.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSarpedon
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.5)
    This is my favorite new hardcover at the moment, could change when I get into the bookshop for work tomorrow:

    looks better in person, that's the hardcover's dust jacket. Pretty decent novel too.
    McSweeny's seems like sometimes their design strives always toward unique which may or may not end up being 'good,' at least to my eye.
    As a for instance, the idea of the two books in 3 covers in their newest quarterly is interesting but was annoying the moment I picked up the volume.
    This sort of annoys me.

    All of the quarterlies seem to [mostly, I think.] fail to have an internal consistency, if i put them spine out of my shelves like all of the books I have and line them up like a bibliophile should, they don't appear to be quarterly iterations of the same publication. But, I can see again where that's interesting and most of the time, considered induvidually, they work really well and as you say Jared, are way better than most other book design out there.

    A novel put out by McSweeney's recently, it's weird but in a way that's not trying too hard, I kinda like it:
    This does not annoy me.
    under the dust jacket is a white line drawing embossed into the hardcover of the image cover, the red on top is actually the hardcover, the dust jacket's not full height.

    I'm going to go make sure all my black and orange Penguin Classics are lined up and ordered in chronological order of first publication or something.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAriana
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007 edited
     (60.6)
    I really liked some of the new covers Gollancz (Orion) put out for their Future Classics series. No text on the covers, and some interesting paper stock choices. Of course, there a bit of screaming from some people about them. They, uh, apparently don't look the way SF is supposed to...




    Edit: amazon page for Hyperion -- you can see the other covers in the "Customers also bought" below the book.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJaredRules
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.7)
    Aww, I like the double book/triple cover thing. I also really liked the Magnetic Binding one. That was awesome.

    Also, I really like What is the What by Dave Eggers (published by McSweeney's, duh) it's got a great vintage feel to it.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMiss
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.8)
    Really liked this cover for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Simple black and white, bold, like the font, not busy, image is not obnoxious.
  9.  (60.9)
  10.  (60.10)
  11.  (60.11)
    Sarpedon -- That "double book" looks pretty great.

    Interesting that there's some controversy with those covers regarding what SF should look like, Ariana. Those should stand out among other SF on the shelves.

    JaredRules -- what's the story on the Magnetic Binding?

    Great examples and pics so far, thanks everyone.
    •  
      CommentAuthorturing
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.12)
    That "Future Classics" set looks so spiffy. And reminds me that I still need to read "Revelation Space".

    "As exciting as drugs and music" is a wonderful tagline.

    The newest reprintings of Kurt Vonnegut's books all follow the same design scheme and it suits them quite well:
    Breakfast of Champions


    AndI found this look at unusual bookshelves quite interesting.
    •  
      CommentAuthorlamuella
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007 edited
     (60.13)
    back in the day, the best book covers I ever saw were for a mass market paperback set of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, released before Mostly Harmless, where the 4 volumes could be assembled in 4 different ways to form different pictures.

    EDIT: I love the look of all those Vonnegut ones. They look like something published in the 1930s by a group that claimed a ha'penny of the cover price went towards buying guns to fight Hitler.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJaredRules
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.14)
    Mark, one of the more recent McSweeny's was like three seperate books, and they were each stuck into one hard cover with magnets, so you could pull them out individually. It is pretty fucking cool.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSarpedon
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007 edited
     (60.15)
    I also really liked the Magnetic Binding one. That was awesome.

    Seconded, Jared, that was indeed awesome. they sort of slid in and out of the larger cover. and everything was a different color too I think.

    The silk screened hardcover what is the what was awesome. I'm a little sad they didn't go for something different on the trade paperbacks but the hardcover was great, they tended to get scuffed up really fast though, which is why you have a dust jacket in the first place but it works really well regardless of being practical. (innovative design seem to lean away from practical: see the crazy spine thing everyone else likes.)
  16.  (60.16)
    I really love the recent set of Neil Gaiman covers
    •  
      CommentAuthorJaredRules
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.17)
    yeah my hardcover is kinda scuffed too. But that just makes it seem even more like a book I'd find in my grandma's huge collection of books.
    •  
      CommentAuthorturing
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.18)
    The best SF designs I can remember seeing in recent years are the covers of a set of Greg Egan paperbacks. The simple design and bright colours set them apart from the rest of the SF rack.
    Axiomatic
    Schild's Ladder
    Permutation City

    Unfortunately, all the other editions of his books that I've seen have had terrible covers. Compare the Permutation City cover above to this exercise in boring bog-standard SF cover design:
    Permution City
    •  
      CommentAuthorFerburton
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2007
     (60.19)
    who goes there?

    This cover caught my attention when I first saw it. I need to find a copy of it though.
  20.  (60.20)
    I love this new edition of Bukowski's Women:

    new edition of Bukowski's Women

    (It could do without the Washington Post quote.)

    The older versions (see here and here) were definitely outdated, though they had certain feel of nostalgia given how long they'd been in service. I will mourn them, if only for how wonderful their paper stock felt. I haven't actually seen the new versions, so I don't know if Ecco kept the same paper (I hope so!).

21 to 40 of 88

  1. <
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. >