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imomusWhen I blogged about graphic designer Zak Kyes a year ago ("graphic energy: a new graphic designer has popped into my ken") I had no idea that within a year he'd have designed the cover of my first published book.
I've just received the design for The Book of Scotlands, due in a month or so from Sternberg Press, and really love what Zak has done with the cover. We'd talked about doing the kind of Rorschach map idea you can see on a rough cover mock-up I did myself last year. (That map idea survives on an inside spread of the finished book.) Then Zak thought about a purely typographic solution in which the first of my texts would start right on the cover, and there'd be no empty space or blank pages at all.
Finally, Zak has come up with a design that fits with other titles in the Solutions series (for instance, his fingers-crossed design for Umbauland by series editor Ingo Niermann, the book that really started this whole "speculative visions about countries" ball rolling), one that has its own "graphic energy".
The red cross, in Pantone 1655, is a colour reversal and rotation of the Scottish flag. The typeface is Johnston by Edward Johnston (1872-1944), who taught Eric Gill, and is best known for designing the sans-serif alphabet used for London Underground.
The slogan "every lie creates a parallel world; the world in which it is true" was originally going to go on the back of the book as a kind of motto (I've always liked that Leonard Cohen live album that just says: "They arrested a man who wanted to rule the world. The fools -- they arrested the wrong man!"), but Zak has promoted it to the front cover. He's also put it into two sentences, which makes it sound, to me, like advertising or propaganda.
In fact, the typeface and this rather amoral slogan evokes, for me, the world of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (perhaps an early Penguin edition). It's a great reference to make, because the Orwell novel is a sustained parallel England in the same way my texts are sustained parallel Scotlands. I can almost imagine my slogan about lies being plastered by Minilove (the Ministry of Love) all over the dowdy tube stations of Ingsoc, alongside slogans like "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." Mine, of course, would be reduced to: "Lies are truth."
And here we come full circle to Solutions series editor Ingo Niermann, who wrote in Umbauland of his plan to "redesign German" into a language called Rededeutsch -- a kind of German version of Orwell's Newspeak. It's an idea I found exciting enough to blog about for Design Observer back in 2005, long before I'd met Ingo and been commissioned by him to write The Book of Scotlands.
I've just received the design for The Book of Scotlands, due in a month or so from Sternberg Press, and really love what Zak has done with the cover. We'd talked about doing the kind of Rorschach map idea you can see on a rough cover mock-up I did myself last year. (That map idea survives on an inside spread of the finished book.) Then Zak thought about a purely typographic solution in which the first of my texts would start right on the cover, and there'd be no empty space or blank pages at all.Finally, Zak has come up with a design that fits with other titles in the Solutions series (for instance, his fingers-crossed design for Umbauland by series editor Ingo Niermann, the book that really started this whole "speculative visions about countries" ball rolling), one that has its own "graphic energy".
The red cross, in Pantone 1655, is a colour reversal and rotation of the Scottish flag. The typeface is Johnston by Edward Johnston (1872-1944), who taught Eric Gill, and is best known for designing the sans-serif alphabet used for London Underground.
The slogan "every lie creates a parallel world; the world in which it is true" was originally going to go on the back of the book as a kind of motto (I've always liked that Leonard Cohen live album that just says: "They arrested a man who wanted to rule the world. The fools -- they arrested the wrong man!"), but Zak has promoted it to the front cover. He's also put it into two sentences, which makes it sound, to me, like advertising or propaganda.
In fact, the typeface and this rather amoral slogan evokes, for me, the world of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (perhaps an early Penguin edition). It's a great reference to make, because the Orwell novel is a sustained parallel England in the same way my texts are sustained parallel Scotlands. I can almost imagine my slogan about lies being plastered by Minilove (the Ministry of Love) all over the dowdy tube stations of Ingsoc, alongside slogans like "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." Mine, of course, would be reduced to: "Lies are truth." And here we come full circle to Solutions series editor Ingo Niermann, who wrote in Umbauland of his plan to "redesign German" into a language called Rededeutsch -- a kind of German version of Orwell's Newspeak. It's an idea I found exciting enough to blog about for Design Observer back in 2005, long before I'd met Ingo and been commissioned by him to write The Book of Scotlands.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 12:40 pm (UTC)ANOTHER FUCKING BOOK USING PARALLEL WORLD AND UNRELIABLE NARRATOR MEMES
on the cover.
Really, if you want to really impress the art world, you'd be better off writing something original. Not shit that screams "Look, I've learned all the correct things to say, pleeeease let be in your gang". But that, as they say, that'll be the day.
As for your forthcoming novel, I remember you even took your very 'influences' off Kundera. Which is actually a fine foundation for a book of jokes.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 12:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 01:05 pm (UTC)I like the 1940s style typeface, but the flag business doesn't work, overall I don't think the cover is that great.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 01:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 01:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 01:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 01:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 01:47 pm (UTC)Call me boring or retro, but I do like the typeface.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 01:51 pm (UTC)No, actually I like the typeface too, but it's kind of predictable. It's where good taste is right now. I would have hoped a Momus book would be tilting against perceived good taste. But whatever, it looks nice enough.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 02:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 02:14 pm (UTC)You're sounding like a 1980s Rushdie novel, and not a good one at that.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 02:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 02:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 02:39 pm (UTC)Since some of the anons today clearly think they could do better -- and now have the official cover -- perhaps they'll rustle up counterfeits and be selling them outside Starr Space on the 24th!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 02:48 pm (UTC)I assume then that European publishers don't whip up a few copies of a given title for reviewers and sundry media before the commercial release.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 02:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 02:50 pm (UTC)jenkins 981/4
Date: 2009-05-14 03:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 03:13 pm (UTC)Re: jenkins 981/4
Date: 2009-05-14 03:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 03:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 03:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 03:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 03:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 04:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 04:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-14 04:33 pm (UTC)Re: jenkins 981/4
Date: 2009-05-14 05:23 pm (UTC)You've learned your postmodern lessons well, my son.
Re: jenkins 981/4
Date: 2009-05-15 12:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-15 12:40 am (UTC)Re: jenkins 981/4
Date: 2009-05-15 01:48 am (UTC)anyway congratulations on your book put me down for a copy.the cover looks classy austere and timeless.really cant wait although your twenty so years body of work casts a very long shadow.
ps like the way you can take the criticisms ie jenkins and the like.glad you dont delete them .as the say in scotland"whit dosnae kill ye blah blah blah"
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-15 02:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-15 02:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-15 03:18 am (UTC)I'm glad I played, a wikipedia search for art and ideas lead me to learn about the carved stone balls of Scotland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carved_Stone_Balls).
Warning: I didn't try to take the piss, so I'm not cool anymore. :(
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-15 02:20 pm (UTC)But I'm looking forward to it. Cover design is tricky.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 04:18 am (UTC)Now I reading what it's about. Still there!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 04:32 am (UTC)Wow, reading through the comments, I'm surprised by the response to the cover. I guess I don't know enough to find it unexciting.
Nice flag
Date: 2009-07-01 03:39 pm (UTC)Re: Nice flag
Date: 2009-07-01 08:18 pm (UTC)I'm told that it'll be in the shops in the US in mid-August (it's actually shipped from Europe on a ship!), but here in Germany it'll just be a week or so until it hits stores, and Britain just a week or so later. So within July for Europe, and mid-August for the US and elsewhere.