Stauffacher Slideshow
Bill Drenttel wrote to let us know of this:
When I look at my bookshelves, I see my life. Whole glimpses of previous interests are represented, from my collection of Latin American fiction to the many reminders of the years I spent living in Italy (the novels of Primo Levi and Italo Calvino). […]
Prized among these are many books by Jack Stauffacher — the legendary San Francisco designer and printer. So it is perhaps not surprising that when the photographer Dennis Letbetter sent me these 60 images of Stauffacher’s bookshelves, I immediately wanted to compare notes. I quickly spotted his complete run of The Journal of Typographic Research. And more: Loeb Classics, Italo Calvino, Stop Stealing Sheep, Hermann Zapf, Horace, Goethe, James Agee, African Socialism. There are books I also own, and others I only dream of owning. It is like my library, only so much better, and I instantly recognized these books for what they are: a touchstone of someone else’s life. “Without this working library,” notes Stauffacher, “I would have no compass, no map, to guide me through the density of our human condition.” I can not think of a more fitting description of a library, or one that so aptly describes a collector’s approach to the world.
Great, great stuff, including sixty photos — check it out.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 11:05 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Libraries | Photography
More Details on Photoshop CS3 Emerge
From Think Secret:
For many Mac users, the most notable improvement Adobe will be delivering with Photoshop CS3 is native support for Intel-based Macs. Sources stressed that the new version of Photoshop, which sports an upgraded and more responsive interface, continually exceeded their performance expectations, including on PowerPC hardware.
Photoshop CS3’s interface is said to closely resemble the look and feel of Adobe After Effects 7, with easy palette organization and brightness adjustment for the overall interface itself. Palettes can be moved, minimized, customized or collapsed down to a single icon with ease; even that familiar two-column toolbar can be converted into a narrower single column bar, if desired.
Another new feature substantially improving both workflow and raw performance is Live Filters, which effectively brings the dynamic editing features of Layer Styles to Filters. The pixel radius of a Gaussian Blur, for example, can be adjusted long after it has been applied with just a single mouse click. Sources report substantial performance improvements to the filters themselves, as well, and have speculated that Photoshop may now be tapping the GPU of the video card to help the CPU crunch filters.
With regard to non-destructive editing improvements, sources report that layers can now be saved as smart objects that the new editable filters can now be applied to.
Sweet.
Alas, not all is good news — Infinite Loop is reporting that Photoshop may be expanded to two versions, a standard and a pro — with the pro, naturally, costing more. As if it needs to be more expensive…!
A March-April 2007 introduction seems to be the consensus.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, December 5, 2006, at 11:43 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Computers | Photography | Technology
Uh, Sorry?
Sometimes, things just don’t go as planned:
Fessed up. Still had a great time.
And can’t help but to think that this would make a cool cover for something. Heh. Story of my life, perhaps…;)
Posted by Giles, Friday, December 1, 2006, at 1:07 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Flickr | Personal | Photography
Aperture 1.5.1, Plus a Trial Version
Apple has released a small version upgrade to its photo-management software, Aperture. It’s available for download here.
Apple’s also, finally, released a trial version — and better still, it’ll run on a good deal many more machines than earlier versions, so more of us can try the program out. And, of course, get us pining for new machines.…
Via Ars. Who, by the way, also identifies a nice Secret Santa gift…;)
Posted by Giles, Friday, November 3, 2006, at 1:41 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Computers | Photography | Technology | Whatever
Covering Photography
Okay, this is interesting:
Covering Photography is a web-based archive and resource for the study of the relationship between the history of photography and book cover design. Our database contains images of and information on approximately 1200 books so far, which may be accessed via Photographer, Author, Publisher, Publication Date and Designer.
Covering Photography is by it’s nature a work in progress, and meant to be interactive. Titles are added on a regular basis, and commentary is encouraged, whether it refers to the site as a whole, to individual phortographers or to any of the covers (every page, including the home page, contains a link to post comments). Because the site, due to my own background, emphasizes a photohistorical point of view, I am particularly interested in comments which approach the material from a literary or book design context. My hope is that this website and database may function as an alternative, albeit atypical, take on the nexus of literature, graphic design and photographic history.
Check it out. (And if anyone would like to redesign their “cover”.…..)
Posted by Giles, Saturday, October 14, 2006, at 11:51 PM.
Posted to Art | Book cover photography | Book design | Photography
Waxy Photography
A while back, in a post on HDR — a special form of photography — I cited Waxy Poetic on Flickr. Now, he’s opened a pro site: Waxy Photography.
Would potentially make an interesting cover, no? Text on an angle, following the stairs.… (Please note: I’ve cropped this image to typical cover size. The original could wrap. See it under “Abstraction” here. )
Good stuff.
Thanks, John!
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, October 11, 2006, at 10:28 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Flickr | Photography
Aperture 1.5
Apple released a new version of Aperture this week at the Photokina show in Cologne, Germany. It’s a free upgrade for current owners, and should be available as a download today or tomorrow.
Rob Galbraith has a good overview:
The program can now work with pictures wherever they reside, not just on a single drive as before, the adding of metadata on import has been streamlined, RAW photos can be exported with XMP-format sidecar files, Aperture Library contents are accessible from applications in Apple’s iWork and iLife suites and a developer’s SDK enables third parties to create custom export modules.
There are important changes to the image viewing and processing controls too, but the most compelling aspects of the new release involving importing, tracking, exporting and sharing pictures. Here’s a look at some of what’s new.
Read the rest, and note the photos from the introduction — nice. (Thanks, Rob!)
Aperture has the potential to be a nearly-perfect application for sorting and preparing photos for use in book projects — its ability to organize is what got me interested in the first place. (After all, I love Photoshop. I’m not interested in “replacing” Photoshop, only streamlining the process — using something to organize and do simple adjustments to RAW files. Photoshop would still be the king for complex adjustments and all “artistic” stuff…!)
Note Apple’s section on books, too:
Presenting prospective clients with a handsome, bound and printed Stock Book sends a powerful message. And Aperture makes the production of such high-quality bound books both simple and affordable. To help you put a unique stamp on them, Aperture includes a sophisticated book-layout engine that offers significant design flexibility.
You can manually drag or have Aperture automatically place photographs in a layout for you. Double click on any photo, and you can zoom in or pan the image until it’s perfectly positioned. Aperture also lets you add both text and photo boxes; move, resize, and rotate photos; insert multi-columned text; even use your own photos as full-bleed, ghosted background images. Need another page? Add a blank one whenever you’d like or simply duplicate an existing page and replace its photos or text.
With Aperture, you have total control. And when you’re ready, you can print your completed book on your own printer, save it as a PDF, or take advantage of Aperture’s integrated ordering service to order hard- or soft-cover books printed at 300dpi for optimal print quality.
Would I lay out a photo book in Aperture rather than InDesign? Probably not. Will have to see, once I have the program.
…Which, unfortunately, won’t be immediately. It’s not just a matter of purchasing Aperture — it’s a matter of also purchasing a computer it’ll run on. My 20” iMac won’t cut it. Soon.…
Posted by Giles, Thursday, September 28, 2006, at 9:45 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Computers | Photography
Amazing
…photograph by Joe Reifer, titled Mojave #189:
Now if that’s not a book cover waiting to happen!
From The Online Photographer, (still) perhaps the best photography blog going.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 19, 2006, at 5:18 PM.
Posted to Art | Book cover photography | Photography
Photoshop Tech "Sneak Peak"
From Rob Galbraith:
During his upcoming keynote address at Photoshop World, John Loiacono, senior vice president of Adobe’s Creative Solutions Business, will provide “a sneak peek at some of the new Photoshop technology being developed,” says a company press release. Photoshop World runs from September 7-9, 2006 in Las Vegas; Loiacono’s speech is slated for the morning of September 7.
Hope to see more news on that soon.
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 1, 2006, at 12:42 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Computers | Photography | Technology
Photoshop: What's Appropriate
Quick mention of something sent along by a friend here in Macon:
This is from the NY Post, a publication I’m not in the habit of reading — but nonetheless a good catch. Altering photographs like this for magazine use, even CBS’s internal magazine, are beyond what Photoshop’s for, I believe, when it comes to people — or anything, for that matter.
For the record, nearly every photo I take runs through Photoshop at some point — especially now that I’m using a camera that shoots RAW. Altering things like exposure and color temperature are standard practice.
Further, I’ll often do a smidgen of “touch up.” Telephone/power lines, dust, something in someone’s teeth, zits — all often get removed in Photoshop. But there’s a line that, for me, rests well shy of altering an image’s character — and making someone twenty pounds thinner definitely crosses that line.
When it comes to photography, I’m more artist than journalist, I guess, but still feel like I have to respect some of journalism’s rules to get “authentic” photographs. What do you think? It is worth following some “rules,” or is this sort of alteration okay?
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, August 30, 2006, at 10:00 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Ethics | Photography | Whatever
Yet Another Personal Post: Why, #12
A client said something to me the other day that I hadn’t expected — and welcomed gratefully:
Giles … you nailed [this cover]. I didn’t expect to come home tonight and
find this gift. I’m downright excited about it.
Gift. Few things have made me feel as good about the work I’ve been doing recently, and emails like that are exactly the reason I’m a freelancer doing what I love, rather than sacrificing standards or autonomy to work at a firm or — gasp — publisher.
As most of you know, 2006 has not been an easy year; divorce aside, too many ospreydesign-related items have been started and not enough finished. A good chunk of that is because I always put my stuff at the bottom of the “to do” list, but I’d honestly rather do book covers than web site updates any day.
Thankfully, the quality of my book design continues to improve as I learn — from you, Foreword’s readers, from my fellow book designers, and from photographers. This is especially important to me; understanding the components I use most in book cover design is vital to where I want to go professionally.
So, a big thank you for your help — and patience — this year.
As a stop-gap measure ahead of the updated main site, which is still waiting on a related project (that’s been suffering delay after delay, grrrrr) before the almost-completed redesign can be finalized, I’ve updated the gallery with eleven new items. Most have been posted before, here or on Flickr, but some are new to all. Hope you like.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, August 23, 2006, at 8:06 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books, design, art | Flickr | Personal | Photography | Site news | Whatever
Everyday Art
Slowly, I’ve been learning about the Nikon and how to use it effectively. It’s more than a different feel — it’s a whole new animal. One capable of pretty astonishing quality.
What I like even better are the opportunities that the camera system presents. I try to take it with me as often as possible, including unlikely events like helping friends move:
Oh, someone please write a tell-all on the American icon that is U-Haul. Have I a cover photograph for you…;)
Was back in their house the next day, and set up this shot intentionally — wanted to see the light reflecting off the surface:
This one’s been fooled with in Photoshop a little, but minimally — the originals are of such high quality that it’s now a question of tweaking or artistic touches instead of “fixing.”
Moving weekend — a camera expedition. Whoda thunk it? Yet two shots (well, more, actually — click thru to Flickr to see the rest) that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Glad I brought it along.
Posted by Giles, Monday, August 14, 2006, at 7:34 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Flickr | Photography
In the Drink: HC, PB, and Something I Don't Do Well
Bumped into this title today:
I like it. It’s not great, but it’s eye-catching, almost there. The changes I’d make are all tweaks (I’m strongly dislike the author/novel font choice, for instance), and all on the periphery — the title treatment is perfect.
This cover represents something I don’t do well. It caused some reflection and a reminder to work on being better at the “style” this represents, especially in the subtlety of the background.
As designers, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. One of my biggest strengths, different, dynamic, or dramatic photography, can also be a weakness — in that I think of that sort of photography first, sometimes negating a simple solution like the one above, which, with the aforementioned tweaking, could be very good indeed.
The hardcover for this title goes in a completely different direction, more “photographic,” playing to the novel’s New York setting:
Again, I have font reservations, but although I’d make changes, the “style” is more in line with how I’d approach this cover. But is it “better?”
It’s a fine line between playing to your strengths and falling into the trap also known as “having a style.” Or is that okay, as long as the versatility to produce different styles well — and appropriately, as in when a book deserves it, instead of “forcing” your style — enough?
Thoughts as I stare at two different projects stuck on the desk for far too long, suffering from cliché hell.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, August 10, 2006, at 10:59 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books, design, art | Personal | Photography | Whatever
NYT on HDR
One of the many benefits of Flickr is seeing trends in imagery before they get out into the mainstream. HDR, or “high dynamic range” photography, has been around for a while on Flickr — but the article in today’s New York Times definitely means it’s hit the mainstream.
They have uses on book covers, but so many that I’ve seen are just overdone — the “high” range produces something that looks artificial. (We’re used to seeing range constrained to the “usual” range offered by cameras, among other reasons.) Plus, far too many people are enamored with the process, producing images that neither need nor work with the HDR technique.
Both of the examples in the Times article and many of the images in Flickr’s HDR group are fall into that “too much” category, in my opinion. But before you dismiss the technique and something that’s only good when “artificial” is appropriate for your book cover, consider that it’s useful for helping “pull” an image from flat into something more, well, dynamic:
From Waxy Poetic. Says “postcard” to me — even some months later, this was one of the first images that came to mind when I read the article. Improved, not overdone.
HDR is definitely a tool worthy of photographers’ and book designers’ attention. Please, though, do it well.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, August 3, 2006, at 2:00 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Flickr | Photography
Mina Covers
These fall into the “covers I’d like to like but can’t” category. They succeeded in catching my eye:
…and the older title,
Unfortunately, they don’t seem to hold up under closer examination. Establishing a “look” for an author is an interesting idea — but forcing a white title onto a picture too light for it, for instance, doesn’t work.
Put it this way: I like the photo choices, but think the graphic design could be better.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, July 26, 2006, at 9:25 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Design
Astonishing.
Perhaps love is a better word:
The quality of photography in my work is about to take a quantum leap forward.
More over the weekend.
Posted by Giles, Friday, July 14, 2006, at 4:23 AM.
Posted to Art | Book cover photography | Flickr | Personal | Photography | Technology
Artist I'd Like to Work with Soon
Meet Els Overkleeft, a photographer and graphic designer from my old stomping grounds of Maine:
In addition to wonderful photos like the one above, Els uses a combination of photos and overlays on some of her work that’s just beautiful — check out many more examples at her web site. Check out the book she’s put together, too.
I especially enjoyed seeing some of the places I’ve known well in the past — it’s been too long since I’ve been back to Maine. Thank you, Els, for the mini-vacation down memory lane.
Posted by Giles, Monday, July 3, 2006, at 12:18 PM.
Posted to Art | Book cover photography | Book design | Book people | Books | Design | Photography
That Reminds Me....
Many, many moons ago, I posted on a cover that wound up being abandoned in favor of another designer’s work. I promised an update, but, as often happens, life moved on and I forgot.
However, I was at the Online Photographer, reading a satire post — with serious implications, of course — this morning, and it featured an image that triggered that memory.
So, finally, what I presented (again):
And, what the author went with:
One word: Ew.
I’d leave a comment on the Online Photographer, but it suffers the same fate as Joseph’s NYT Covers blog and everything else from Blogger: it doesn’t allow me, using Firefox on a Mac, to enter the necessary letters to approve comments — just keeps asking for ’em over and over. Unfortunately, the Online Photographer doesn’t have a contact form for me to let him know.
Blogger: Enough already. Please Fix That!!
Posted by Giles, Sunday, June 25, 2006, at 1:28 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Photography | Type and typography | Whatever
FotoExpresso
…has a new issue out, which offers some good tips for color correction, if anyone’s after a refresher. Note that English isn’t the author’s native language, but the info’s still clear and easily understood.
They review and point to a new product I wasn’t familiar with (and might pick up): Pantone’s Huey. Nice. (And cheap!)
Posted by Giles, Friday, June 23, 2006, at 11:54 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Computers | Photography | Printing | Technology
Stairstep Resize Myth Debunked
For years now, ever since a Photoshop World conference back in my juice-label days, whenever I’ve had to resize an image up — make larger file from a small original, I mean — I’ve used the “stairstep” method. I’m pretty sure it was Scott Kelby whose presentation started the trend for me, followed by another Photoshop “guru” afterwards cementing the method; others have been heard to say the same thing.
By “stairstepping,” I’m referring to the practice of sizing up an image in 10% jumps. I’ve even added actions to Photoshop to do this, so it’s just a matter of a few clicks to get an image to a size I might need. By and large, it’s worked pretty well.
Well, no longer — it’s been proven the less effective method:
Stairstep upsampling on the left; bicubic (with smoothing) on the right.
[I]t’s pretty easy to see that this method doesn’t hold a candle to the bicubic smoother method. Look at the differences in test patches 0/4, 0/5, 0/6. They’re no longer clearly resolved, because the aliasing that I feared has messed them up. The same aliasing has the effect of ‘enlarging’ each of the dark areas, so that the Stair Interpolation version seems to ‘bloom’ slightly compared to the bicubic version.
Read the rest, including some nifty mouseover comparisons, here. (And check out some of Paul’s portfolio — nice.)
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, June 21, 2006, at 11:11 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Computers | Design | Photography | Technology
Couple of (Photo) Quickies
Company in town, so light on the posting this week — but wanted to cover these couple of photography-related items:
— PDN 2006 Photo Annual Gallery, especially the Photo Books category.
From Aftermath: Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace. Just one example of powerful and wonderful, wonderful stuff here — well worth the few minutes you’ll take going through the whole thing. (It’s hard to stop once you’re in there.…)
— Adobe’s released the third beta of Lightroom, for those interested. I’m going to go with the Aperture path here at Osprey Design, but will definitely check out the new version of Adobe’s photo management/retouch/process/kitchen sink application.
The latter notation is from the Online Photographer, one of my favorite photo blogs, run by Mike Johnson, who’s been in the biz a long time. He’s highlighted a comment he got, that I’d also like to:
Is digital photography finally exiting its infant years? That a program originally designed for graphic artists, and not photographers, remains the preeminent software for photo editing shows the need for something like Lightroom. Photographers need software designed for photography, and it’s about time we got some. As amazing as Photoshop may be, its complexity and host of unneeded features make it a compromise solution. We don’t know yet if programs like Lightroom and Aperature are the answer, but at least the software makers are finally looking in the right direction.
As a graphic designer going into photography, I can agree with this — for the longest time I couldn’t understand why anyone would want anything other than Photoshop. It’s a great program, with enormous capabilities! But it’s also for jobs of one. Try 1500 of anything in PS and you’re in trouble. Aperture’s notion of stacks works especially well for me — but it’s great to see competition in this area, so the features and power in these programs will keep growing.
Thanks, Mike! Thank you, Photo District News. And Apple, thanks for Aperture, but get the auto-run ads off the front page of your website. They’re offensive.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, June 14, 2006, at 10:30 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books | Photography
American Empire
As I mentioned, while hiking around the Georgia mountains, there was a project simmering that I wanted to share: American Empire. This is the latest in a string from this publisher that I’ve had a great time with.
First, the “loser:”
And, the cover selected:
It was a toss-up for me in terms of preference, even if the latter cover is based on an original photograph — I would have been completely happy no matter which they chose.
Special kudos to comic artist and genius Craig Hamilton, who graciously let me intrude into his Lego collection with my camera. Thanks, Craig!
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, June 7, 2006, at 4:52 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design
On Photography and the Canon Digital Rebel XT, Part 1
Phew: Survived. The last six weeks have been out-of-control busy, in case you couldn’t tell by the lack of posting (or comment moderation). Why? Well, six book covers (including the two Bush covers I’ve posted about), two magazine ads, a new edition of a 56-page catalog, and 100+ hours into this POD project I yapped about a few days ago now. Speaking of which, I’m starting with this because it’s fresh on my mind, then will work my way backwards through my list of once-intended posts over the next few days.
This post is a little off-topic for a book design blog, but I’m posting it for two reasons: One, uh, well, I can. Great thing about blogs — built-in soapbox…;)
Two, some of our “regular” readers might be interested either in this particular camera and how it worked (and didn’t work) for me in a very demanding test, or might be thinking about professional protography and are interested in the opinion of what amounts to an amateur shooting his first wedding — with a camera he’d used for only a few hours, didn’t have a manual or more than one effective (in my hands) lens for, and who undertook this project more than a little ragged after weeks of eighteen-plus-hour days.
Am I glad I did it? Yes. Absolutely, emphatically yes. I learned more about the hoops necessary to do this effectively than a thousand lectures from the best professionals in the world could have given; got to gift a good friend with more than a thousand photographs of his bachelor party, rehearsal dinner, wedding, reception, and a kickin’ party afterwards; and find out under the most grueling conditions possible whether a certain camera system will work for me before I put down the investment.
Couple of notes before I get the review proper underway: Product reviews are not my forté, so I’m hoping you’ll forgive a bit of a haphazard style. I’m going to give you good and bad, followed by a sample gallery of photos, posted through my Flickr account. Some photos are straight out of the Rebel XT (or my current Sony f828), some are altered in Photoshop. No matter what, it’s my opinion. There are Canon vs. Nikon wars aplenty; we don’t need one here. I’m not qualified to speak with authority on anything other than how I feel about this camera equipment, relative to what I have now, as someone serious about taking the step from “amateur” to “professional” photography. (I’ll explain that better, too.)
Continue reading "On Photography and the Canon Digital Rebel XT, Part 1"
Posted by Giles, Monday, May 22, 2006, at 4:24 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books, design, art | Business | Computers | Flickr | Personal | Photography | Site news | Technology | Writing
Photographs I Love Tonight
Took a dinner break (at 11:45 — heh), spent a few minutes with Flickr, and ran into a photo begging for a book cover, if ever there were one:
A cropped version of regularjoe’s Laying Blame. See it much larger, uncropped (see if you agree with my crop — and you bet I’d use the rest to wrap), and in much better quality here. (Gotta be a matte finish on this one, by the way.)
P.S. If you’re a Flickr member, join the discussion on whether the leaf should stay in this photo. I agreed with the suggestion that it should come out, but I’m in the minority. (Not suprisingly…;) Thinking from a book design perspective, though, unless the leaf specifically plays into the book’s story, I’d rather use that space for text and put the emphasis on the grasses above. Where to crop the photo would play into it, too. ’kay, dinner break’s over.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, April 27, 2006, at 11:44 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Flickr | Photography
More with Oote
Apologies for not getting this up yesterday; many moving goalposts. (Trend continues into today — took two hours to get this posted. Joy.) Thanks for your patience.
Oote Boe sends me emails regularly with photos attached, describing new events or galleries, physical or virtual. Those emails, along with other photographers’, have played a critical role in how I choose photos for use on book covers, where I source those files, and just as importantly to my goals, vastly improved my photography and photographic knowledge (lenses, angles, depth of field, and so on).
Another one of those goals is to work more with people and less with corporations, and keeping in touch with photographers is a way to get fresh, interesting, often fantastic photography that’s specifically not available from Corbis or Getty. Interesting, then, that I should hear back from him on this issue specifically when we started talking about Too Many Men. Bottom line: He hadn’t known it had been used on a cover.
Concerning the not knowing[…]: It is a book cover which went most likely through an affiliate of Nonstock. Some agencies consider info on where and how it is published client-agency confidential information. They are afraid the photographer is going to contact the end user directly.
I know this end user would contact the photographer directly. (Oote’s happy with his current representation, though, and that’s good.) Even if you purchase through an angency, one reason for direct contact is the (delightful) bonus tidbits:
Some other versions I shot during that moment. The quality is not so great, sorry, as I scanned them from the film strip. I never have printed them as photos.
and:
Seems we got him on the trail of other book covers, too — he found and points us to another:
A Dutch book, the title says “Playing inside”. (“This bundle consists of 13 stories, in which the central figure has sexual escapades with different living and not living well known figures. The writer, Alma Mathijsen, is 21 years old.)
If I look at the letter design it looks like the book is geared towards teenagers. What do you think: Is it Dutch design ?
I’d agree on the teenagers part, but can’t speak to Dutch design at all. Can any of our readers? Better still, anyone seen this title?
It’s from this series of photos, which Oote thoughtfully also supplied:
Kinda like the middle one, myself…;)
Seriously, as I work to improve my book design, it’s great to examine, learn about, and know the process that produces them inside and out. (And then blog about it!) Many thanks to Oote for not only his great photography but also his invaluable assistance in the process.
Meanwhile, we can look forward to more wonderful photos from Oote — he’s out and about this summer. And he has a request:
I will be from May 10 till September 11 in Europe. First 2 weeks Holland and from June 1st through August 30 in the South of France. If there is someone who works on a project on South France and needs a photographer, do not hesitate to contact me. I’m normal to reach through my phone (+1 718 395 2199) and I have Skype (ooteboe1) and email to stay in touch.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, April 26, 2006, at 11:00 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Personal | Photography
Update on Bush
Update, Friday noon: Going to go into the weekend. Would rather beg for an extra couple of days than not get this one right — and it’s proving sticky. I so want to use the red, white, and blue, all the type treatments I’ve tried are icky (and there’s a tone of type — long subtitle and two authors), etc., etc. Sometimes things just don’t “flow” the way you’d like.
Update, Thursday afternoon: Red, white, and blue definitely do not work. I’ve settled on a couple of different crops, but the colors and type are taking forever.
Original Post:
After a ton of culling through photo selections, the final three, uh, candidates were presented for this two-color, scholarly title yesterday:
The editors went with the first photo, which happened to be my favorite, as well. Alas, all three of the final images are from Corbis, so from here, it’s not a photoshop game but more a question of taking this photo and making a book cover out of it.
Parenthetically, I generally prefer to use cover subjects that are facing or whose action leads to the opening side of the book. The image chosen has Bush looking towards the spine. While in no way as powerful as the left-action image from Oote, for instance, Bush is well-known enough (heh) to attract attention to a cover no matter what.
Red and blue (with some paper showing through, for white) seem like the obvious choice for colors, but we’ll see how that plays out. Also, there’s deciding how to crop this photo; the title is 6×9, and the photo obviously isn’t — so do I use boxes, cropping, a combo? Time will tell.
Suggestions and “here’s how I would put this together” comments welcome.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, April 19, 2006, at 10:30 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books | Jobs | Photography
Leave it to Oote
Speaking of wonderful photographs for book covers:
Oote nails it. Again.
See more of his collection, including some items previously only available through Nonstock, here.
Update: James Morrison lets us know it already has been used:
Not used well, IMO. The crop and background removal are okay, but the choice of blue and especially title treatment are lacking. Sorry I can’t show you a more interesting, dynamic cover to go with this interesting, dynamic photograph.
The crop, especially, has a nice parallel to the Bush photos, above. It’s definitely sometimes a tragedy to chop off so much of a wonderful photograph — the struggle between keeping the photo wide and making it full-cover can often been pretty agonizing. Here, one of the cover’s (few) deft touches is to try to blend the photo’s crop right into the color (black) bar at the bottom, suggesting (and just missing — what a few minutes’ extra work would have done) that the bar’s part of the photo.
Thank you so much, James!
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, April 18, 2006, at 11:52 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Photography
Flickr Fave Update
Simply put, approaching it the way I did — trying to put something together quickly, rather than tying to a project I could devote the time to — was a mistake. Quality should always be first.
Stepping back for a few. I’d very much like to use photographs from people on Flickr in addition to the usual sources we all have for cover photos. All that’s required now is going about it intelligently.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, April 18, 2006, at 11:29 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Flickr | Photography
Preserved for Posterity
Found myself downright barking at a professional photographer tonight who had argued that restricting access to her work online was better than dealing with a few people out to cause trouble. I felt kinda bad afterwards; I was perhaps a little harsh. (Who? Me?)
I’m not a professional photographer, in the sense that I earn a living exclusively selling photographs, but I do sell photos, deal with photographers’ rights, and sell a creative, copyrighted or work-for-hire product/service that, while not as easily “stolen for use elsewhere,” is subject to a good deal of competition. Above-board, honest people and grab-your-ideas-and-undersell-you-later types alike.
Pushing your work farther and farther out into the world instead of walling it off clearly works. Foreword is my evidence.
Click through to Flickr and look at all the little notes by moving your mouse over the boxes on the photo. They’ll run you through all the stuff in the picture, including the icons, menu items, etc. (Warning: geek alert…;)
Sure, there are hassles. (Looking at new web servers [hosts] this week, for instance, so we can rebuild pages in the middle of the day without timeouts. You wondered why so few mid-day posts…?) It’s definitely a challenge to post regularly with the quality we’d all like to see — and that keeps traffic growing. Oh, and have I mentioned there’s still the rest of the web site to finish?
But it’s so worth it. Glad we can be here together, learning about book design. Whether it’s your first visit or your thousandth, thanks for coming by.
Posted by Giles, Monday, April 10, 2006, at 5:51 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book cover photography | Book design | Books, design, art | Business | Computers | Design | Ethics | Flickr | Freedoms and rights | Jobs | Love | Personal | Photography | Public domain | Publishing | Site news | Technology | Type and typography | Whatever | Writing
NYTimes Covers
It’s Monday, which means a trip by Book Covers from the NYTimes Book Review around here. Missed last week, so double the fun today!
Including this gem:
J’adore. Spacing, aging, colors, amazing photo arrangement, all of it. Joseph is exactly right about the noose, too.
Update: Crown kindly let me know that David Tran did the cover for Our Town. Nicely done, David!
Great conversation going about A Changed Man, as well — check it out. (Like the Saunders and Disposable American, too. Thanks, Joseph!)
Posted by Giles, Monday, April 3, 2006, at 6:22 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book cover photography | Book design | Books | Type and typography
Reasons I Love Flickr Tonight
Some of the sheer artistry:
No idea what/where this is. Doesn’t really matter; I’d love to use it on a book cover.
Found because someone with the nickname Daydream Scream tagged a photo of mine as a favorite. There’s no way I’m not going to follow up on a name like that — and found this.
Sweet Flickr.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, March 23, 2006, at 8:48 PM.
Posted to Art | Book cover photography | Computers | Flickr | Photography | Technology | Whatever
Posted for Comment
Dan writes:
I’ve attached a couple of covers I’m working on for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, if you’d like to post one or both for comment. The photos are pretty much set at this point, but I’m still refining the typography. Would love to know what people think. Thanks!
I’ll take both, thank you:
and:
I like the photo choices, and generally agree that it’s down to typography. More in the comments — please join in.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, March 22, 2006, at 1:53 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Type and typography
Photographs I Love Tonight
Can’t let Foreword’s third birthday weekend pass without a post on one of our newer areas of emphasis: photography. Especially the intersection of photography and book covers.
Here’s one I’d love to use on a cover:
From the always-wonderful heavenuphere, shooting at an architecture exhibit in Rotterdam.
She’s also a librarian, and I covet her garden, too. Multitalented!