Book Covers

John Updike writes a compelling, somewhat intense article on book overs.

Economic utility to whom? To book manufacturers, basically. Publishing forms a minor branch of the entertainment industry, and book design is increasingly a matter of fashion—that is, of attention-getting. In the visual clamor of a bookstore, the important thing is to be different; a whisper becomes a shout, and the ugly becomes beautiful if it attracts attention. Yet an utter flaunting of conventional expectations may baffle and repel the public; when the title and the author’s name are left off the front of the book, as in three examples taken from the past few years, it sends a subliminal message of contempt for the written word, the product being packaged.

The postwar book designer has two audiences—other designers, who applaud daring, witty “creative expression,” and the bookstore browser, whose supposed interests are ever more zealously safeguarded in “a corporate environment where marketing analysts, editorial boards, and authors insist on significant participation in the design process.”