Spine Out

12/8/11

Richard M. Powers

For those of you who don't know the work of Richard M. Powers, make a trip to the sci-fi section of your nearest used bookstore immediately. Powers pretty much single handedly reinvented the look of the science fiction book cover. Drawing inspiration from surrealist and modern art (Miro, Tanguy, Picasso), rather than traditional pulp depictions of spaceships and aliens, Powers' cover illustrations emphasized the psychological and trippy-er aspects of the genre. Largely forgotten (except by enthusiasts), in the 1940s and 50s he was THE go to guy for mass market science fiction illustration. Some of his work was recently represented in Steven Brower's superb study of mass market book covers: Breathless Homicidal Slime Mutants. He should really have his own book. Read more about him here.

The covers below were culled are from the collection of occasional Spine Out guest blogger and knower of all things of interest, Tim Cronin.

11/30/11

Love This

Todd St. John illustration for the NYT 10 Best Books of the Year.

11/28/11

Contest #4

Name the designer, win the book.

Is it possible to put LESS on a cover and still have it mean something?

Difficulty level: 3

Good Luck!

11/18/11

30C30D

In case you are not following along, we just crossed the halfway mark for 30 Covers in 30 Days.

A small sampling here, but check out the website for more great work by amazing designers for a good cause.

Christopher King:

Edel Rodriguez:

Christopher Silas Neal:

The controversial Paul Share cover:

Mark Abrams:

Braulio Amadou:

11/9/11

The Paul Bacon Tumblr!

11/2/11

And so it begins again...

30 Covers in 30 Days.

First cover by the wonderful Jessica Hische posted yesterday. The fantabulous Scott Buschkuhl of Hinterland posting today.

I won't spoil all the fun, but look out for Paul Sahre, Edel Rodriguez, Carin Goldberg and 25 other amazing designers/illustrators/artists as they attempt to design book covers in 24 hours in support of National Novel Writing Month.

I will not be posting them all like I did last year, but you can follow along on the NaNoWriMo website.

10/26/11

All That Remains opening

Fantastic turnout for the All That Remains collage show opening at Picture Farm via Ugly Art Room. Show is up until November 19. If you can't make it, work is available here —at very reasonable prices.

Photos via flickr

10/25/11

Let's just get it over with already.

Legacy publishers?

10/18/11

30 Covers in 30 Days

Starts again on November 1!

10/16/11

Abandoned Projects #1

Train Drawings 2008-2010.

As a way of interacting with the perceived invariableness of my daily commute, I began a series of "automatic" drawings that were dictated by the ebb and flow of my train ride.

Reason for abandonment: I came across the work of William Anastasi.

Odds of revival: 10:1

10/12/11

Vote

for your favorite Murakami inspired artwork.

10/5/11

Heavy Metal

What is on Oliver Sacks' desk?

9/29/11

International Collage Show of Epic Proportions

I am one of the curators of this show. There will be lots of great work to see. And i'll buy you a drink. Mark it down, October 21st.

October 21st - November 19th, 2011

Ugly Art Room (via Picture Farm)

338 Wythe Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Opening Reception: 7-9pm, Friday, October 21st, 2011

Paul Burgess, Virginia Echeverria, Fred Free, John Gall, James Gallagher, April Gertler, Jenkins, Gordon Magnin, Clarita Mata, Jeffrey Meyer, Tom Moglu, Randy Mora, Nicole Natri, Julien Pacaud, Ciara Phelan, Emmanuel Polanco, Eduardo Recife, Kareen Rizk, Javier Rodriguez, Valerie Roybal, Katherine Streeter, Leigh Wells, Charles Wilkin, Lionel Williams, Bill Zindel

9/26/11

Dragon Tattoo Poster?

Being designed by the amazing Neil Kellerhouse, who is, for my money, THE best movie poster designer working today (not that it would take that much to design a poster better than the usual Hollywood high octane blandness). Mr Kellerhouse far exceeds.

NOTE: Upon further investigation, this may or may not be final poster art. It was originally posted on the movies "unofficial" Tumblr site. Apparently there's been some issues with the movie poster. No more gossip on this from me.

Speaking of Dragon Tattoo, New ish of Design Bureau has, what sounds like, an interesting interview with Peter Mendelsund.

Sorry!

Been spending too much time over at flim-flam.

More soon!

9/7/11

Luc Sante has

a lot of books.

8/11/11

New Cover

Tom McCarthy's "C". Trade paperback.

Available September 6th.

8/3/11

Record Books

Records turned into book covers by Christophe Gowans. Check the link for lots more. The app icons are worth a look too.

7/25/11

New Oliver Sacks Covers

Fantastic new Vintage series designed in-house by Cardon Webb.

Available starting in August.

7/24/11

Nora Jones Peanuts book cover gig poster

by Matt Leunig

7/21/11

Lo-res Book Covers

These are great. via Casual Optimist.

Catcher in the Rye:

Even one of mine:

7/20/11

First idea, worst idea?

I occasionally use post-it notes to jot down very rough thumbnails. They make a size that has nearly the exact same proportions as a book cover. I then either stick them above my computer, hand them off to a designer or throw them out. Looking through some of these from the last couple years made me realize how few of them actually make it through to final. Part of it must be the book cover kill rate, but I also think I might be using this process as a way to get the bad ideas out of the way, though for the life of me I have no idea what projects half of these are for.