Every Christmas my parents bought my siblings and I each a book in the sense to encourage reading even when not in school. The books of course were suitable to the age we all were at the time of Christmas, but even so I was never really interested in the book if it's cover wasn't "pretty"-- if the cover wasn't designed well. Of course at age 5, I wasn't saying "Mom and Dad this cover isn't designed well, so the presence of this book is not appealing in any nature -- thus I refuse to read it." I would in fact, just say "Thank You" and throw it under my bed to use as a coloring book later on in life. But the point of this is, my parents always said "Don't judge a book by its cover". Not in the 'I'm trying to teach you something with a much deeper meaning' type of way, but in the very literal way. The content was the reason why they purchased the book, not the design or pretty colors displayed on the outside. So, in turn I grew up liking books not for what they looked like but for the content in which they consisted of. This ended when I went to highschool and realized how much I really loved art and took my first design class. I started paying more attention to the book covers on the books I picked up to read. In fact, in many ways I re-sketched the covers after reading the book and wondered even if the designer knew what the book was about. Then on books that were extremely pleasing to the eye and caught your attention right away in the bookstore, the cover seemed so much better than the actual book. It was like they spent more money on the designer because they knew the book sucked. There was never a happy medium or if there was, it was very slim.
I always wondered exactly what happens with books and designers. Is the book designer told what to produce by the author? In the instance of Arthur Magida, a fellow UB professor, he explained the process of his role in designing the outside cover of his newly released book--"A Nazi Seance". He showed our Editorial Style class the first comp of his book, and he as well as the other designers in our class gasped. He explained it was awful and had no relation to the content of the book. As the revisions went, the book cover did indeed get better. In my opinion the final version isn't the best as I'm sure he would agree, but it does at least portray the meaning of the book and the content that it's filled with.
Then you take a look at the other way to design book covers. Look at the book before the movie, then look at it afterwards. It's a disgrace. I'm not a fan of book covers re-done to portray the hollywood actors and actresses hired in the movie. No design what-so-ever and I honestly would like to see if the sales go up when the book is re-done. I'm sure they do since they constantly do this...
Either way, I'm not really quite sure if a designer can ever over-design a book cover. It is possible, I'm not denying that. I just feel it's more likely they under-design it or design it completely wrong for lack of reading the actual book. Althogether, it's a shame.
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