Typeface fails.

It's not secret that I love The Beatles. Everyone that knows me know this small fact about me. It's also not a huge secret that I really do enjoy Shakespeare, Twelfth Night's easily my favourite. However, I don't particularly care for Paul McCartney (George all the way), and a book of Shakespeare's play my mum picked up is just slightly terrible. We'll start with Paul.

Howard Sounes, HarperCollins, 2010

Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney is the most comprehensive biography of McCartney around. Released in 2010, it covers his early life in Liverpool, The Beatles, Linda, Wings, Lennon's death, and of course the Heather Mills saga. McCartney's life has been filled with tragedy and success, and at a lovely 634 pages, this book seriously covers it all. This cover incorporates most of McCartney's life in a simple and attractive way. Musical instruments, a pedestrian crossing and bright colours surround a very honest picture of the name himself. Looking his age, there's no attempt to hide the fact he's getting on with life, no matter how many up and downs he's thrown. The name alone would attract people towards this book on the shelf, and the cover design just enhances the want of a reader to have it on their shelf. That's the reason I bought it, I'm intrigued by Paul's life, but he's definitely third equal for my favourite Beatle. The typeface is a basic sans-serif, with McCartney's handwriting used for his name. The sans-serif works on the cover, it's nice and easy to read making it attractive for readers. Just wait until you see inside...

Inside cover, half title page, 'also by', and title page.

Imprint, contents, contents cont., and first section marker.

Here're the prelim pages for Fab. The red inside cover repeats from the thin red border on the cover design. The typeface is a sans-serif also continued from the cover, the use of white mimics the paper which I really like - it stands out well on the dark red and it's easy to read. Throughout these pages, the only change in typeface comes from 'HarperCollinsPublishers'  on the title page, and the use of a typewriter-like typeface for the contents - this continues through the book for each section title, chapter title, and A headings within chapters. These pages are all easy to read, however using a sans-serif for the imprint is something I haven't seen in non-fiction before. I understand that it's just the typeface they're using and the designer is being consistent, but for important information a serif would be much more suitable.

Now this is where the book gets really interesting. As you can see on the right here, a nice 1 is in a circle (a continuing theme), the chapter title and A heading are in the same typeface as the title, as is the B heading in the second picture (The Quarry Men). Each of these elements are great, easy to read and distinguished for the reader to follow along. But the body text, oh the body text. It's in the same sans-serif as the prelim pages. Terrible. A serif is usually used for books with a narrative, and as a long biography, you'd think they'd have used one! This sans-serif is still easy enough to read, the characters are spaced and each page is justified. The main thing that's put me off reading this book if because I'm not used to it, and I find it a bit unsettling. Perhaps others didn't mind, but I think there's a time and a place for sans-serif fonts, and a long narrative story isn't one of them.

Usborne, 2006, illustrations by Elena Temporin.

Now to Shakespeare.
This is Stories from Shakespeare, the book takes 10 of his stories and re-writes them in to 'a lively, easy-to-read style', according to the blurb. I believe Mum picked this up at a second-hand store because that's just what she does sometimes. Dad started flicking through it and promptly gave up, for reasons you will see in a minute. Firstly, this cover. I do like it. It's bright enough to catch attention, without making the three witches from Macbeth look too exciting or happy. The typeface for the title and Usborne on the spine, as well as bring shiny and silver, gives a modern but still traditional feel to the book. The blurb uses a slightly-serif typeface, that links to the traditional feel that the title gives.

Imprint, title page, and contents.

The brightly blue background of the imprint and title page spread catches the eye very easily, and the typefaces of the title have come through from the cover. The typeface of the imprint, illustrator etc., is the typeface that is continued throughout the book, including the contents page. Each of these pages are designed beautifully, they're easy to read, and hold the attention of the reader well. However, now you will see why Dad put it down so abruptly.

Oh Macbeth, you're not hard to read. The black, slightly-serif typeface stands out easily against this yellow-cream background. You can see where the heading is, and where printers' flowers have been inserted to indicate a break. This is all well and good, but then the next picture tells all.
BAM. I can understanding wanting to be consistent with one colour for the text, but where the background is darker, you can hardly read the text. This was one of the issues Dad had when going through this book, and his other was actually the size of the text - apparently it's too small. I can read it, and kids probably can, but I can understand the difficulty. So back to the colours, I've mentioned before it's pretty OK to change the typeface colour if the illustrations call for it. The whole things makes me pretty angry, it looks ugly and, just like Dad, it'll turn people of even reading the book. Silly choice Usborne.


More to come, 
K.

Awesome? Well, clearly.

Michael Chabon, a name most commonly associated with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys. As I looked through vicbooks the other day for books to take pictures of, I came across his name in the in the children's section. 

Illustrated by Jake Parker, HB, 2011, HarperCollins Children's Books.

Yes, The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man with Moskowitz the Awesome Dog. Crazy man for a dog. The use of colour on the cover, and throughout the book for that matter, is fantastic. Awesome, one might say. The yellow and red in the title tie in nicely to Awesome Man's sweet outfit. The darker Space background helped enhance the colours of Awesome Man, while they've used a nice insert for his dog. The simplicity of the image on the back of the cover is nice, taking away from the busy front a bit. Also the mere three lines about Chabon is great, no need to flaunt his success. 

End papers

Title page

For a children's book, attention to detail, I think, is key. I'm sure most children don't let you skip pages when reading to them, and the end papers are a great example of pages that don't have to look pretty but the effort is definitely worth it. They are very simple, using different images of Awesome Man and repeating them, but it's enough to catch the eye and make you want to stop and look at them.
The title page captures Awesome Man in all his glory. The typeface of the title is very classic in terms of comic books and superheroes in general. Of course he's holding it up because 1. that's just awesome, and 2. it makes complete sense for kids to love him. The colours come through from the front, and the black strip along the bottom creates a 3D element to the image, as well as enhancing the colour for the author and illustrator's names.

Here are a couple of sample pages. The text colour changes depending on the background image. This is a great idea, especially for illustrated books, not to stick to conventions but go wherever the book needs to go. The black stands out perfectly in the first picture due to the bright colours (it's hilarious, click on it, and read it). The bottom picture uses white perfectly for the darker image. The whole book uses a sans-serif typeface, which, like I've mentioned before, is perfect for kid's books. This sans-serif is simplistic and nicely spaced, making it easy for a child to follow and read themselves. The pages themselves are wonderfully designed; the first uses boxed information really well to create a methodical and easy way to read the book, while the second runs left-to-right, up-down giving a logical rhythm. 

Imprint

I really enjoyed this page, with the dedications are in keeping with the superhero/comic book feel of the book. You'll find the imprint for most children's books in the back of the book, I'm not 100% sure why this is. But the red background here links to the end papers (look back up), and the black sans-serif typeface stands out well again here. 


Lots more to come (assignments due super soon!),


K.

Oh design scrapbook, it's been a while.

Yes, it's been a while. School's been busy, and a few weeks ago we were on work placements for two weeks to get a lay of the real workplace land. It was super fun. But this is about book design, because it must be.

Daniel J. Weatheritt, Dinosaurs: A Pocket Pop-Up,Walker Books, 2012.
Click on the images for a better view.

Yep, this is a post regarding a pop-up book about Dinosaurs. How cool is it though?! On the left is the little cute box that the book fits in to when it's all folded up. The bright red of that box was what actually caught my attention first when I was in the store, and the T-Rex on the front looks pretty awesome too. The title stands out wonderfully against the red background with the use of different colours. Also, I think having in capitals is a great idea - some people may disagree, but given the audience for the book, it yells the title at anyone looking at it, attracting them towards it. 
As you can see looking down the book, it covers a range of dinosaurs on nicely and different coloured backgrounds, and below you can see a couple of detailed pop-ups. 
The image on the front of the fold out part of the book itself is also striking and very detailed for a children's book. The yellow background attracts the eye and I'm sure would catch the attention of children. The title 'DINOSAURS', although it is difficult to see, is actually not fully black, but has a patterned effect on it to make it look older and faded.

GREEN!

Here are a few examples of the pop-up element of Dinosaurs. This book is clearly marketing towards young children through the people that would buy their books - adults. 

My poor photography attempt, apologies.

The colours on these pages are outstanding to me. They easily catch the eye, which seems to be a great theme through this whole book. 


The typeface used through the book, for the title, subheadings and text, is a sans-serif. For books the obvious choice tends to be for a serif typeface, however I think the use of sans-serif the right one. Since the assumption is this book will be read by/to young children, a simpler almost child-like typeface would be best suited.

I loved this little guy's face.

So that's my bit about dinosaurs - they're not my usual jam, but in this context they're pretty awesome. More posts to come.