Is there a vogue for book covers which resemble curtain material or wallpaper? Never mind dustjackets, you could have 'loose covers'! Moving swiftly on, these floral designs are much more appealing than some of the awfulness books are put in, and going on nothing more than appearances I'd certainly pick up both The Unspoken Truth and Lovers and Newcomers if I saw them in a shop.
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They don't appeal much to me dear Cornflower! I particularly do not like the design of the Angelica Garnett which has a clash between the typeface and the motif which is the the detriment of both. It also has an horrible gap between the second "t" in "Truth" and the "h" - why such an infelicity on the title page?
A bit of Jan Tschichold's influence would not come amiss here.
I hope the books are better than their cover art.
Posted by: Dark Puss | 16 May 2010 at 08:54 AM
Surely you agree they are better than headless women and the like? Anyway, no gap as such between the 't' and the 'h', it's the elongated and curved bar of the former which pushes the latter a bit to the right.
Posted by: Cornflower | 16 May 2010 at 09:15 AM
Different from the headless women I agree, but better I am not completely convinced!
The "gap" I refer to is indeed the elongated bar of the letter t (I took the care to look at your "pop-up") and it is completely wrong to use that in the middle of a word; it would work reasonably well as the last letter of a word, and indeed was often seen as such in earlier printed books as it mimics graphical conventions used in handwriting. It looks absolutely horrible in this context.
Posted by: Dark Puss | 16 May 2010 at 09:52 AM
For a decent titling typeface for the Garnett book, how about the lovely ITC Golden Cockerill Titling? No nasty l.c. "t" with ludicrously extended cross bar in this typeface. Designed by Eric Gill for the Golden Cockerill Press you can read here a little more about the original typeface.
Posted by: Dark Puss | 16 May 2010 at 02:11 PM
Do you think maybe this might be a Persephone influence?
Posted by: Henrietta | 17 May 2010 at 06:22 PM
I love the Garnett cover - and the content as well!
But have a look at the cover for More Talk on Jane Austen - http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/2010/01/project-24-oops.html - similar sort of thing happening back in 1950 (and, so far, content equally lovely too!)
Posted by: Simon T | 18 May 2010 at 08:43 PM
Oh, and have you read The Unspoken Truth? I'd love to know what you think. (Now I'll probably find that you have blogged about it, and I've commented on the post!)
Posted by: Simon T | 18 May 2010 at 08:44 PM
Simon, clearly you are on Cornflower's wavelength much more than I am with regard to cover art. Do you not find that awful t in "Truth" completely wrong? Even the ligatured tt is fairly nasty!
Wrong typeface ...
I'll admit to not liking this general style of cover art but my criticism here is primarily typographical.
Posted by: Dark Puss | 19 May 2010 at 09:59 AM
I do agree with you over that 't' in 'Truth' (although have to confess that I didn't notice it on my copy until you mentioned it) but love the rest of it so much that I can forgive that injudicious bit!
Posted by: Simon T | 19 May 2010 at 11:52 AM