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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Visual Art / Books Design Flaws

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 3:13 PM

Print Magazine has a great story up right now. It's a series of interviews with eight book designers about book cover designs that have been rejected and why. Here's one of the pieces:

The one closest to Carson’s heart is for Arthur Bradford’s Dogwalker (2001), a collection of stories with a cast of half-pet, half-person mutants. Carson came up with a cheerful baby-puppy hybrid. “I showed it to [Bradford’s] editor,” says Carson, “and the reaction was really funny, a sort of ‘Eek!’ She said, ‘It’s kind of repulsive, it’s kind of scary, but it’s kind of charming.’ So I thought it stood a chance.” Bradford admired the cover’s “strangeness and creativity,” he says, but “something about that dog-baby’s face struck me as sinister and mocking.” After a detail of a pooch from an Old Master painting was rejected, Bradford and Carson chose a quieter canine close-up; both love the finished product. “Looking at [the original] cover now, it doesn’t seem as ill-fitting as I’d first thought,” says Bradford. “I have children of my own now, and perhaps a baby’s face isn’t quite so scary to me.”

You should go read the story; it's really fascinating. I chose this story to run here, though, because it reminded me of how much I enjoyed reading Dogwalker. If you're into short stories, you should definitely track the book down and read it: Bradford's short stories are effortlessly genial and weirdly creepy at the same time, like a friendly, interestingly ugly dog.

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When Chip Kidd lectured at my school, my favorite bits were his wry re-tellings of his rejected book covers, especially when he talks about working with Cormac Macarthy and David Sedaris. Fun stuff.

Posted by Parsnip