Polpo

polpo It seems that at Christmas, many people bought  this book as a gift and the spine often played a major part in their purchase decision.

Yes, that’s right — the spine.

Although to be strictly accurate there is no spine. Instead the book’s stitching is revealed (In bright green no less).

As well as being beautiful and different, there is also a practical benefit to having no spine — The book can be laid out flat on the kitchen counter so the recipes are easier to read.

Form and function.

How nice to see a spine play such a pivotal role in the design process.

And because this kind of thinking cannot be replicated in a digital version —  we expect to see a lot more of this kind of innovation over the coming year.


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My Time

wigginsThis whole cover is a stunning piece of book design. Tactile, clean and simple, it’s a truly lovely object to give a cycling fan, or to treasure for yourself.

But what we love most is the attention to detail under the jacket — the yellow board, the repeated images and, particularly, the spine. It’s a witty surprise for anyone who takes the time to look.

Random House didn’t have to do this. But the fact that they did shows true empathy with their market. For cycling fans, this is more than just an autobiography. This is about treasuring and savouring a truly astonishing moment in British cycling — and the love and care lavished on this book reflect that perfectly.


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Predator’s Gold

reeve-spine_0OK so these aren’t spines but we couldn’t leave this series without picking up on the treatment of the paper edges.

By colouring them blue the publishers have perfected the ‘video game look’ and turned this book into an altogether different visiual proposition.

Each element (front, back, pages, visuals, typography, etc etc) works off the other to deliver a truly three dimensional design concept.

Suddenly it no longer looks or even feels like a book — it is a unique and peculiarly tactile piece of packaging.

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20th Century World Architecture

cn_image-size_-20th-century-architecture-book

OK so this spine in it’s purest form is not so special. But what makes it important is that it forms part of the carry bag which this book comes in.

Every copy is supplied in its own bag which has been designed by Catalog in Holland and is engineered from a single sheet of paper.

It is a very clever way of adding value to the book.

Not only does it look cool but it also protect the books in the retail environment and make them easier for customers to carry home (especially important given its potentially off-putting size and weight)

Everyone is talking about how print books need to step up their game if they want to compete with digital. Lots of people talk blithely about ‘production values’ but here is something genuinely fresh and innovative.

It makes us very excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for those publishers who have the imagination to think beyond the obvious

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Kiss Kiss

kiss-kiss-spineThis is fascinating because there are only two things here that the publisher really cares about communicating:

The first is that it comes from Penguin. The orange spine and the logo take care of that. They are by far the most dominant aspect of the spine messaging.

Clearly less important in this case was the name of the author. It is discretely placed at the top. Elegant but out of the way.

Finally, at the bottom of the communication pecking order is the name of the book itself.

In fact, it is so unimportant that the white type is pretty much lost against the orange background of the publisher branding.

Those were the days when publishers had the upper hand in author relationships and it shows.

We will never return to those times but there is a half way house — where both Authors and Publishers can bring values that influence and inspire the consumer.

Sadly, few imprints (Two Roads / Nosy Crow maybe?) have shown the vision to make this happen.

This is crazy in an era where ‘Discoverability’ is such a crippling issue.

Publishers should be doing everything they can to give consumers new and interesting ways of finding their books online and stronger imprint brands are an obvious opportunity.

It is happening in other markets such as Gaming (RockStar Games); Music (XL);  Television (HBO); and Film (Pixar). Surely it is not beyond the skills of publishers to turn certain imprints into consumer brands? After all, some are half way there already.

If only the publishers had the confidence to take that final step…



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Genius!

geniusThe book is called ‘Genius’

The strapline is: ‘Deceptively simple ways to become instantly Smarter’

Given this context, the exclamation mark on this spine does exactly what it should do.

Need we say more?

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The Impossible Dead

rankinHow fantastic to see something new on a spine

And so damn clever too.

For years now, publishers have taken one element of the cover visual and used it on the spine as some sort of signifier  - a shorthand to remind us of the front cover and to harness the publicity that has surrounded it.

Here, Orion have chosen to reproduce the whole cover on the spine with title, author name and all.

It works an absolute treat.

They may have gone down this route because the actual cover lacks a distinctive icon — in fact what makes it work is simply the use of the bold blocks of colour to pull out the typography. But nonetheless, it is still a leap to decide to put the whole cover image on the spine.

It reminds us of when Vintage changed the game for referencing previous books by the same author when they introduced their cover for A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon.

Instead of using a quote like “By the author of …” they created a ‘sticker’ with a visual of his previous book. It was so much more effective as a memory trigger and indeed has been copied many times since.

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These jumps forward in cover design by playing with different ways of building on author brand equity, using spontaneous awareness and prompting memory are how books cut through the clutter.

In this day and age it is more important than ever that designers work hard to exploit every opportunity. We congratulate the team who worked on this for opening up a new angle for others to build upon.

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The Art of Looking Sideways

sideways This is one of the great books on design and creativity.

So lots of pressure on the designers to come up with a jacket that stood apart.

They achieved this by doing something deceptively simple — The cover is nothing more than a long list of questions that challenge us to think differently.

And of course, given the title, they are all printed sideways

This device works brilliantly on the spine, as at once it gives us a snapshot of the content of the book. It works like a ‘Blurb on the Spine’ in that respect.

However it also ensures that the spine is an integral part of the overall design and not something that sits apart — in that awakward narrow space between the two covers

(If you look closely at the image here you can see how the questions continue on either side of the spine in one continuous flow across both jackets).

All very elegant, clean and simple.

Just like the author advocates throughout this tome.




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The Flame Alphabet

the-flame-alphabetThese are really interesting.

Lots of different design tools have been used here to maximise their impact.

- The jarring bright colours…

- The background of sharp angles which stretch and push against the narrow sides of the spine

- The contrasting blocks of type which are used for the title and are spread down the length of the spine

It should be a mess: Too many things going on and too many of them clashing directly with each other.

And yet…these spines not only work. They are gorgeous


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Pure and Sorry

pure_0 bw

Ah…so what was an original idea is now ‘The New Thing’

Why is it proving popular in these tough economic times when production costs are being kept to a minimum?

1) It catches the eye on the shelf — thus giving the books more presence and stand-out

2) It means retailers are likely to stock at least two copies of the book (side-by-side) giving it more prominence and maybe even making it look like a ‘bigger’ book than it is in reality.

Simple but effective.

We much prefer the impact of the “Pure’ version but now are we about to see a deluge of “Cover Twins” ?


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