It’s been a while, I know, but I’ve been busy-ish. I redesigned this here blog for example and since my last post I have handed in all my research from Semester One and had some rather favourable feedback on it.
I have also gone and started up my very own Tumblog (other than Lovely Book Covers) for sharing little things I find lying around in cyber space that amuse or inspire me. Find it at andrewhenderson.tumblr.com.
On a more expensive note, I also decided to treat myself to a Flickr Pro account so I could have all my favourite photos online from the past year or so (or since I got a half decent camera). I’m going to try to keep it updated with new design work and ideas as well as photos. Click here to see my photostream, and feel free to comment and favourite to your heart’s content.
Might as well mention my recently started Goodreads profile too. I figured that if I’m going to attempt to persue a job in book design I it wouldn’t be a bad thing to show an active interest in the books themselves. I’m a big fan of the site, think Last.fm for books.
It feels a little weird having a “Professional” Flickr account, seeing as how I feel anything but. That last sentence was just my way of setting up a sign off quote from good ol’ Hunter S. Thompson…
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
A quote from a book? How academic of me.
It’s that time of the semester again, essay hand-in day; this time known as Design Report One, with part two set to follow next year. This time around we were allowed to do something a bit fancy with it, rather than just the good ol’ A4 classic look. I didn’t want to go over the top with it, mostly to keep the content of the essay prominent, rather than have it lost in the design.
As you can probably guess, my main topic for discussion was book covers. Generally, the essay talks about why books are given new covers every few years and how their relationship with the contents compares to that of album sleeves and DVD covers. One of my main case studies is the classic Penguin covers we are all so familiar with so I thought making my design report seem like it bore one would be nice idea.
I ended up with two “formats” for lack of a better word. The first was your traditional A4 style essay.
It was typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro, only a slight variation on my usual Garamond but well, it works. I’ve always preferred to use serif fonts for essays and such, they seem a lot more formal and sophisticated in my opinion. I have seen some very pretty essays in Helvetica though.
My second copy wasn’t quite so successful. It’s essentially the same as the first, but in Penguin’s classic ‘A format’ of 181 x 111 mm. I would have loved to have gotten it professionally bound and printed as a wee paperback but printing problems led to time contraints that led to me printing the cover myself (making it much poorer quality than the A4’s Bob Scott produced gloss print) and settling for spiral binding. It looks not bad really, although the margins are clearly too small but I’m pleased with the full page images.
It could be worse for a day or two’s planning and I’m just hoping it’s not all style and no substance. I’d like to think it isn’t, but at least I only have a two month wait for my grade.
I have completed my onslaught on the digital revolution. First I had Bebo and MSN, now I’m usually found on Facebook and Twitter. As if having my own blog wasn’t enough, I have finally signed up to Tumblr.
My Tumblog is basically a way for me to keep track of all the book covers I have been/will be looking at over the course of my fourth year research. It saves me printing them all out, cutting them all out and sticking them all down, overall I would say it is much quicker to post them up on the internets.
Just go to lovelybookcovers.tumblr.com to see the story so far.
Hello. I just had my proposal signed off by the tutors and it’s quite the load off my mind. Now I really have no excuse not to power on with my research. I said I’d post it online once I was done and, for anyone who might be vaguely interested, you can see it by clicking here.
Now I have some books to read, must be off.
So now that fourth year is upon us, I have been working on my proposal for the coming year. It’s been a bit stressful but I’m getting there. The final draft isn’t finished yet but I do plan on posting it up here when I’m done (because once it’s online, for all to see, there is no going back).
Along with with writing this proposal I have been looking for some potentially very useful books for my research, although without much luck. This is the part when what you are reading turns from blog post to cry for help. Of the fourteen books I unearthed I only have access to five, which is not a particularly great ratio. If anyone reading this could help me out it would be wonderful, whether you lend me a copy or buy it as a present, either way I’m good. Click on titles and it’ll take you to Amazon, how convenient.
Seven Hundred Penguins
Faber & Faber: Eighty Years Of Book Cover Design by Joseph Connolly
Book Design by Andrew Haslam
New Book Design by Roger Fawcett-Tang and Caroline Roberts
By It’s Cover: Modern American Book Design by Ned Drew and Paul Spencer Sternberger
Fully Booked: Cover Art And Design For Books by Matthias Hübner
Notes On Book Design by Derek Birdsall
Book-Art: Innovation In Book Design by Charlotte Rivers
Children’s Book Covers: Great Book Jacket And Cover Design by Alan Powers
I did manage to get Front Cover: Great Book Jacket And Cover Design also by Alan Powers, Designing Books: Practice And Theory by Jost Hochuli and Robin Kinross, On Book Design by Richard Hendel and Classic Book Jackets: The Design Legacy Of George Salter by Thomas S. Hansen from the library which are already being put to good use but, y’know, the more the merrier and all that.
I also already own the fantastic Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 by Phil Baines which is has provided bucketloads if inspiration in the past.
Anyone who wishes to help me complete this wee collection will shoot up quite a few spaces in my list of favourite people ever. And anyone who can guess my theme wins a prize, it’s a toughie but I reckon someone out there can do it.
