Heist
Long, long, long couple of weeks — including email troubles again ($#^@* spammers) — and another long one on deck. Plus major events both of the next two weekends. I’m behind the curve, as you can probably tell. Apologies for the quiet.
Jack Abramoff is in the news these days — one of many items vying for attention among the headlines — and, as typical for this point in an election season, the “tell-all” titles are flowing fast and furious.
Heist caught my eye:
Political titles seem to be a little flat stylistically, I believe, but this one’s better than many. Far from perfect, though, including a perhaps questionable title choice and the two extra people on the cover many won’t recognize (can you name them?). Props to the designer to getting Abramoff’s name — which everyone will recognize — as big and as prominently placed as it is, though, and I love the “i” in the title growing out of Abramoff’s head. Heheh.
What do you think?
Comments:
I think that the two other people on the cover are Bob Nay, (top) and Tom Delay at right.
The arrows seem unnecessary , and yes, Nay & Delay’s heads could have been done differently, but I’ve sen much worse.
I love the expression on Abramoff’s face.
I understand the impetus for the arrows, but they are just too much flash (as Jon pointed out). Its a weak cover all around - no sense of position, no sense of motive. In this day and age of American political books, it seems to work best if you aggravate the readers’ position on the policies and their political leanings, and this does nothing to demonize the events. And, generally, this doesn’t win the three-second grab in a store. I feel that the designer is trying to state too much without giving me the emotion behind the problem.
I think a little more refinement would have helped - especially experimenting with scale changes. There are a number of books with a lot going on on the cover but in this case, there just isn’t a clear hierarchy between the elements. I think the text block could use some finessing (leading and relationship between type sizes). The text block is also basically the same height + width as “HEIST” but not in a way that feels to me like they’re intentionally playing off each other. Also, all three headshots are effectively the same size - if Abramoff is the main figure, i’d consider making him larger - if for no other reason than to provide some depth through scale changes. The arrows themselves aren’t a bad idea, but they feel a little tight to the edge, and how they interact with the type seems odd.
I just remembered that I wrote a letter to Bob Ney once. He’s the guy who decided that “french fries” needed to be re-named in the wake of France’s unwillingness to support the US resolution on Iraq.
I wrote to tell him he was an imbecile.