What’s great about this is that these two covers are of the actual House. If you look at the credits on the back, you notice that the vintage photo is credited to D.T. Ruhlman. Which we can assume is a relative of the author.
Between the title, the sequential photos, the style of the house, and the sedated design and layout, you really get a feel for the book before you’ve even picked it up.
Beautiful. Would have taken out the child crossing the road in the black and white photo and added a modern little girl and pram in the colour pic. But have not read the book so perhaps another child character could be featured.
Possibly one could combine the two photos in some more complex way as well ((partial overlay? mosaic? half + half?). Proportions of the current design are 1.5 X ( 1 + 0.24 + 1) – which appear quite unusual for a book. Appears quite stretched vertically. Is the title panel (using the house metaphor – the middle ‘floor’) in the best proportion with the photos? Could the photos and other elements be arranged to resemble the construction of the house?
Anyone else having a little visual trouble with the relationships here? I feel like both photos are slightly tilted, while they sit on a horizontal bar. Maybe it’s just the yard.
i like this cover for my book—it does reflect the narrative which goes back and forth in time.
the top photo is courtesy of the little girl in it, one of the first inhabitants of the house. my wife is a photographer (dtrphotography.com) and shot the lower photograph. some were taken with my three year old son driving a motorized motorcycle along the sidewalk to parallel the child in the top photo, but the designer or my wife didn’t like.
A really nice treatment. A truly refreshing design. Beautiful relationships between the images, between the serif and sans-serif text and between the form and content.
I guess I am used to seeing clever type and object/shape oriented covers from this guy, so this tends to be a cop-out for me. Old, new, before and after. There is nothing clever about it…
I DO like the concept. I even like the treatment of the text and box in the center. The placement of the text looks good here.
I’m not crazy about the pictures. They do feel off-titled somehow, so the who design begins to fail.
My other problem is with the lack of change between the two pictures. Initially I thought it was a sepia image of a house and a color image of a house… it wasn’t until I squinted and saw the children out front that I realized the two photos were taken years apart. The passage of time isn’t as strong as it should be, I guess.
Maybe the design is trying to convey the more things change the more they stay the same? I think it would be more powerful if the pictures where more different than similar. I do like the idea of the same shadows and same angle though.
It’s the sidewalk that’s making everything look a little tilted, unfortunately. I don’t notice it in the lawn itself, just the sidewalk.
Otherwise, I like it. I also initially thought “oh, they just Photosho—oh, no,” so I guess that means there is enough difference between the pictures that the confusion isn’t significant.
Listen C-Dog. We need to talk. I dig your perspective… Your design sense is wholistic and superb. Perhaps I can send few cover designs to you sometime to critique before I send to a client. for a fee of course…
What’s great about this is that these two covers are of the actual House. If you look at the credits on the back, you notice that the vintage photo is credited to D.T. Ruhlman. Which we can assume is a relative of the author.
Between the title, the sequential photos, the style of the house, and the sedated design and layout, you really get a feel for the book before you’ve even picked it up.
— Ben Pieratt, 2007-03-07 14:07:00
Beautiful. Would have taken out the child crossing the road in the black and white photo and added a modern little girl and pram in the colour pic. But have not read the book so perhaps another child character could be featured.
— dd, 2007-03-07 14:32:00
Possibly one could combine the two photos in some more complex way as well ((partial overlay? mosaic? half + half?). Proportions of the current design are 1.5 X ( 1 + 0.24 + 1) – which appear quite unusual for a book. Appears quite stretched vertically. Is the title panel (using the house metaphor – the middle ‘floor’) in the best proportion with the photos? Could the photos and other elements be arranged to resemble the construction of the house?
— pp, 2007-03-07 15:10:00
Good stuff.
— dave, 2007-03-07 18:54:00
Ahhh!... they took out the perfectly suitable shrubbery!
— Eric, 2007-03-07 21:30:00
Wow. I really love this idea.
Anyone else having a little visual trouble with the relationships here? I feel like both photos are slightly tilted, while they sit on a horizontal bar. Maybe it’s just the yard.
Anyway, I really like this.
m welch
— m welch, 2007-03-07 21:30:00
I think it’s the yard. There is some lens distortion in th top photo that is elongating the image vertically.
— Eric, 2007-03-07 21:31:00
i like this cover for my book—it does reflect the narrative which goes back and forth in time.
the top photo is courtesy of the little girl in it, one of the first inhabitants of the house. my wife is a photographer (dtrphotography.com) and shot the lower photograph. some were taken with my three year old son driving a motorized motorcycle along the sidewalk to parallel the child in the top photo, but the designer or my wife didn’t like.
the lawn is sloped.
— ruhlman, 2007-03-08 05:47:00
A really nice treatment. A truly refreshing design. Beautiful relationships between the images, between the serif and sans-serif text and between the form and content.
— Matt, 2007-03-08 05:49:00
Here is a page from Michael’s site detailing the book with a different cover.
http://ruhlman.com/books/house.html
Nice to see the author stopping here!
— Dean, 2007-03-08 06:51:00
who gives a crap what the proportions of the book are? as long as it looks good.
— john, 2007-03-08 07:05:00
I get it, but i don’t like it. Well, maybe a little…
— Ian B. Shimkoviak, 2007-03-08 12:39:00
I guess I am used to seeing clever type and object/shape oriented covers from this guy, so this tends to be a cop-out for me. Old, new, before and after. There is nothing clever about it…
— Ian B. Shimkoviak, 2007-03-08 12:41:00
I DO like the concept. I even like the treatment of the text and box in the center. The placement of the text looks good here.
I’m not crazy about the pictures. They do feel off-titled somehow, so the who design begins to fail.
My other problem is with the lack of change between the two pictures. Initially I thought it was a sepia image of a house and a color image of a house… it wasn’t until I squinted and saw the children out front that I realized the two photos were taken years apart. The passage of time isn’t as strong as it should be, I guess.
Maybe the design is trying to convey the more things change the more they stay the same? I think it would be more powerful if the pictures where more different than similar. I do like the idea of the same shadows and same angle though.
— C-Dog, 2007-03-08 14:53:00
*whole
— C-Dod, 2007-03-08 14:55:00
It’s pretty darn good.
— Martin, 2007-03-08 17:10:00
Out with the old, in the with the…new, which is the same as the old…which can now be viewed as the new, even though it’s old. But what’s old anyway?
— Blake, 2007-03-09 05:21:00
It’s the sidewalk that’s making everything look a little tilted, unfortunately. I don’t notice it in the lawn itself, just the sidewalk.
Otherwise, I like it. I also initially thought “oh, they just Photosho—oh, no,” so I guess that means there is enough difference between the pictures that the confusion isn’t significant.
— rek, 2007-03-10 06:38:00
Well, the sidewalk is ON the lawn, hence it is crooked.
— Eric West, 2007-03-10 14:17:00
Listen C-Dog. We need to talk. I dig your perspective… Your design sense is wholistic and superb. Perhaps I can send few cover designs to you sometime to critique before I send to a client. for a fee of course…
— Ian B. Shimkoviak, 2007-03-13 16:30:00
I see they now have a pet penguin.
— graham Mansfield, 2007-03-23 10:11:00
same time of day. well done.
— zach, 2007-04-19 14:27:00