Book(cover) Report: April

Written by Joshua Lurie-Terrell on April 22, 2004

After a recent bathroom remodel, I had to cut back pretty drastically on my bookbuying. Luckily, a few book publishers seem to think that Typographica might actually be a good marketing tool, and from time to time they send me a review copy of something they are particularly proud of. Most of what I’ve received recently has been utter crap and not worthy of a paragraph, but there were a (very) few standouts — books I would actually buy, if my wallet were not completely empty. Alan Powers’ Front Cover is one of them.


front-cover.jpg

Alan Powers’ Front Cover: Great Book Jacket and Cover Design is a tremendous amount of fun. What drew me into the book and kept me reading was not the large number of examples and the size & quality of the illustrations, but the attention that Powers gives to typography! Covers are organized by era, and there are some very good examples of work here, including a number that should be much more well-known. His commentary on each era (far more focused on individual designers and historic styles than this type of book usually is) aims the book specifically at designers and the research and commentary makes it much more than just a pretty coffee-table book (although it is quite pretty). The success of Front Cover caused his publisher, Mitchell-Beazley, to print a version dealing with children’s books recently, although that one I have not yet seen.

5 Comments

  1. That is really great to hear because mine is already in the mail! I ordered it last week.

    Thanks!

  2. Oh, and nice bathroom too.

  3. Amanda says:

    Excellent book. We have a copy and refer to it often for inspiration.

    Fabulous sink! I’m assuming that it was very expensive.

  4. jlt says:

    Mexican handpainted sinks are ridiculously cheap. About $80 on Ebay (just look up “talavera sink”) and $30 to ship to the US.

  5. baskew says:

    excellent bathroom indeed.

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