Top Shelf from sixty40 on Vimeo.
The History of Palatino:
Palatino is a serif font designed in 1948 by Hermann Zapf for the Linotype foundry. It is designed to be as an easily readable font, which mimics a broad nib pen stroke. The name Palatino comes from the Italian calligrapher Giambattista Palatino The font was intended to be similar to the hand writing styles used in Greece and Italy during the renaissance period. However, in order to make it easier to read the ascenders and descenders are shorter than they would have typically appeared during this time period. There is therefore more focus on the standard text height with large counters.
Hermann Zapf is one of the leading typeface designers and typographers. He was born in Nuremburg, Germany in 1918, and was brought up in the tough period of the German revolution following the end of World War I. He self taught himself calligraphy from books written by Edward Johnson and Rudolf Koch. He began an apprenticeship in lithography in 1934 on recommendation from his teachers due to his drawing ability. He served for a time in the German artillery during World War II, however this was short lived (his career that is) and he later returned to Juterbog to train as a calligrapher.
Zapf is famous for a number of fonts including Palatino, Ultima, Zapfino as well as others. These have subsequently resulted in many “knock-offs” and similarly designed fonts. The most common knock-off of Palatino is probably Book Antiqua, which is often in common use in with books and written material. There are also several variations on Palatino itself including Palatino Linotype and Palatino Nova. There is also a san-serif version called Palatino Sans.
The spread of the letters and wider spacing definitely makes Palatino an easier font for reading large blocks of text. By default, it does tend to spread across the page compared to other commonly used serif fonts such as Times. It therefore may be less substantial for solitary headings or quick headlines which are supposed to “grab” your attention.
It's everyone's favourite airport thriller series. I'm not sure what to say about this cover. I think it's a bit misleading, considering what the book is about. I've found that all of these "Millennium Trilogy" books have very Oriental looking covers. I realise that the title character has a Chinese dragon tattoo (it's in the title after all), but still - it's not a particularly big stretch of the imagination using that as the cover image. This particular cover feels even more Asian than it should be due to all the flowing line shapes and muted colours. I'm not sure why the artist would go so far in this direction for a book about Swedish Nazi rapists (spoiler alert), but I find it a bit off topic.
Apparently this is a contemporary, take on the old Shakespeare play for the teenage audience (with teenage characters). Personally I'm not a big fan of modern takes on Shakespeare's stories, they always seem a bit tacked on. However, I've never read a John Marsden book, so I can't really say whether or not this is the exception.
Anyways, this critique isn't about that, it's about the book covers. I've started with this one because I wanted to make the point that I've found there seems to be two main variations of overall book covers (at least the less kitsch ones).
The second is the book cover that assumes the average person already has familiarity with the book or story. A cover like this will use iconography that the audience will already know, in order to "re spark" whatever previous association the viewer has.
In this case the skull from the "alas poor Yorick" speech in Hamlet is used. The skull in Hamlet is well known, but I can only assume (although I can't say for sure) that it has less of a literal presence in this teen version. However, on seeing the skull on the book, the viewer will remember the connotations associated with both it and Hamlet. Hopefully they will be intrigued to pick up the book and when they glimpse the small text saying "a novel" it will be like a small nudge to get you to realise that this may be something more edgy and hip than Shakespeare's original play.
Both books an movies seem to like to do this, and it makes sense. If something already has an established reputation, you may as well use it. Although there are occasions when it really does not work.
-- plus the grey colour gives it a morbid look, as does the faded gradient and the non structured san-serif font. Big centred words grab attention etc etc.
There is even a circular relationship where a cover image will eventully become iconic unto itself - independant of the written story. Clockwork Orange fits this mold - this image is so iconic in popular culture it is guaranteed to be incorporated into any media relating to the story. Images like this allow for minimalist representations of well known stories. The audience can recognise the story because the icons are so familiar:
35mm from Pascal Monaco
I figure this is the natural evolution as a piece of media becomes popular.
