Books as Objects
March 3, 2010
Judging Books by Their Covers: U.S. Vs. U.K. 40
by C. Max Magee
There are all sorts of marketing considerations behind these designs, and it’s interesting to see how designing for these two similar markets can result in very different looks.
February 5, 2010
Deckle Edge in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 28
by C. Max Magee
The deckle edge dates back to a time when you used to need a knife to read a book. Those rough edges simulate the look of pages that have been sliced open by the reader.
January 14, 2010
The Great Book Purge of 2010 37
by Edan Lepucki
For about a year, the books in our apartment threatened to swallow my husband and me. Adding another bookcase, like adding another lane to an already clogged freeway, didn’t help–it only encouraged us to read more.
June 10, 2009
Uniformity and Blandness: Designing the Body of Work 6
by C. Max Magee
If you are a popular and prolific enough author, an interesting thing happens to your books, they all begin to look the same. This is the primary outward manifestation of an author as a brand. As a large oeuvre gets rounded out to perhaps a dozen or two titles, the publisher picks a [...]
March 12, 2009
Up in the Sky, It’s… 11
by Edan Lepucki
The upcoming paperback edition of Netherland looks suspiciously like the 10 year anniversary edition of Infinite Jest. What say you?
February 25, 2009
Judging Books by Their Covers: America Vs. UK 5
by C. Max Magee
I’ve always thought that British book covers, generally speaking, are nicer looking than their American counterparts, with the latter seeking to target a demographic rather than to dazzle the eye. With this in mind, the following is an incredibly unscientific experiment in aesthetics. I’ve taken as a sample the Tournament of Books contenders [...]
