The Pale King

the-pale-king-spine-1I have to admit that initially I was really disappointed with this spine. After the understated vibrancy of the front cover (post to follow soon), it felt like a bit of an afterthought.

That’s what I thought while I held the book in my hands… But the minute I put it on a crowded shelf, I saw how wrong I was.

Its width is clearly a big advantage. Rather than cramming it full of noise and colour, Jon Gray has wisely used it to create a wide stripe of calm serenity amidst the on-shelf, spine-out chaos.

Its clean, clear colour means it avoids being recessive — instead it breaks up the shelf and draws the eye:

photo

Really satisfying — and a great example of how important it is to test your spine designs in a real-world context (or even, as I did, on your bookshelf at home or in the office).


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Skippy Dies: Booker Longlist 6

skippy-dies This is fantastic — simple, unusual and eye-catching. A really good example of bold design that works commercially as well as aesthetically.

What makes it stand out is its naive quality on a fiction shelf that looks increasingly slick and photographic. Its roughness immediately makes you question what’s inside and want to know more. And I love the fact there’s been no attempt to explain the title, which sounds both lighthearted (“Skippy”) and tragic (“Dies”) at the same time, forcing you to turn the book over to look for clues.

One gripe… WHY has the publisher felt it necessary to add “A Novel”? Of course it is — it’s on the fiction shelf. Adding “A Novel” is guaranteed to make any book look stuffy and unapproachable, instantly.

And another (sorry). The back cover is stuffed with copy, in stark contrast to the front: skippy-back

It’s really hard work to get to the heart of the book — the blurb should be cut by at least half to do this design justice.

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