Book Cover Archive blog

The Frankenfont Project is a limited edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein assembled from various PDF files found on the Internet. The book starts “coherently” in a mix of Helvetica, Arial, and Times New Roman, and by the end of the book is nearly incoherent.

Came across this peculiar item on Svpply. “How delightful,” I thought, “a smudge.”

Not so. A closer look reveals an offset print of Homer’s Iliad, printed at a “resolution” of 30 words per square centimeter.

Also available: Faust, Das Kapital, and Macbeth as a spreadsheet.

Thatcher Wine is a different kind of book designer. He’s an interiors designer who specializes in filling space with books.

Projects include themes, custom dust jackets, and art projects built out of discarded books. Be sure to see the slideshow for detailed shots.

* (Shame on the NYT for the lazy “___ a Book By Its Cover” headline.)

I’ve been in Mendelsund’s office a few times, and it is overwhelming. There’s so much amazing work laying around you’re not entirely sure what to do with yourself.

See a bunch of photos with captions over at fromyourdesks.com/

*Hat-tip to Peter Terzian

(apologies for the total lack of designer credits on this post.)

From a Penguin Malaysia “Unputdownable” ad campaign, via This Isn’t Happiness

“The re-working, dealing with all the feedback (some warranted, some moronic) ‘make this bigger’, ‘make this smaller’, ‘my psychic thinks it should be blue’—that is what separates the men from the boys,”

Nice interview with a man at the top of his game. Most of it is related to the Nabokov series. If I were a famous book cover designer, I think I’d just flat out refuse to answer any questions related to e-books at this point. Nothing wrong with the topic, of course, but it must get intensely tiresome.

And for what it’s worth, having stopped by his office on a handful of occasions, I can attest to the fact that he really does dress this well.

I’m jealous of whoever winds up with this job. Working under Alex Camlin’s would be an experience. Learn more.

A bit old, but I hadn’t seen this one.
Techno Tuesday is the most scathingly wonderful series I’ve come across in a while.

Have a nice weekend.

As you’d expect, I’ve got a search column on TweetDeck for “pieratt”. One of the few advantages of having a weird surname is that most related queries are relevant to my interests in one way or another. For instance, I’ve got no relation to this store, but I plan to buy a staff shirt from them some day.

My dad’s name come up today in Twitter for the first time that I’m aware of. It was from a site which made mention of one of a handful of theological books he wrote while stationed in Sao Paulo as a missionary.

Points of interest:

1) It’s a torrent site offering it up for illegal download
2) It’s a Christian torrent site
3) I’m pretty sure my mom designed the cover for the book while on staff at the publishing house that my dad operated.

When I consider my motives for going into design or my interest in book covers, my parents don’t come up as an immediate consideration. But that can’t be right. My dad ran a publishing house for 8 years and my mom was the staff designer. I don’t remember being exposed to the company or the design work in any real sense, but the alternative would defy common sense.

1928-2010