A summary of the Amazon summary: A harrowing story narrated by a sexless German who falls in love with a Jew during WWII. Between forbidden embraces, they discuss literature and art.
Wow what a striking cover.
Seems to represent the book perfectly.
nan – perhaps I’m missing something, but if you’re going to blame someone for not crediting the photographer, it should be us, as we don’t have a photographer (or illustrator) specification form, yet.
We hope to change this in the not-so-distant future.
Reminds me a lot of the cover to Auto de Fe (Fay? I can never remember correctly)... I think Auto de Fe better though… then again this might look better in person rather than digital, now that I think about it.
They look too tanned to be part of a “harrowing story” set during WWII. I would have liked paler skin, although I must say the tans they have go beautifully with the spine colors.
I agree that the text seems a little off…although it does attempt to unify the slightly conflicting (but beautifully appropriate) styles of modern-looking photograph with old-fashioned book spine.
I think their skin is mostly just edited and darkened in shadow to go with the rest of the book-it doesn’t look really tan to me. And I think that’s not a particularly big worry. (And that’s definitely a woman on the right-look at the hands and the curve of the back.)
The anachronistic font, the failure to make the type conform to the slightly rounded antiquarian book spine, the weirdly disorienting out-of-proportion relationship between this book spine image and the figures behind or to either side of it, the gold stamping that gets inelegantly cut-off at the top and bottom of the book spine image (how much trouble would it have been to clone these out?), the lamely done shadows on the flesh to either side of the book spine (which helps account for the weird lack of proportionality already mentioned), the unappealing prospect of having to touch all that air-brushed flesh, the sloppiness of the unidentifiable scrap of flesh at the top left side of the book spine… I guess, “Yuck” is my aesthetic response to this overreaching, under-executed example of splicing two extremely “stock” images together, slapping on an ill-chosen font and calling it cover design.
Hmmm… I don’t get it. The spine of a very large book is hovering in space so as to obscure two people embracing? Don’t even get me started on the perspective, text, and shadow tool. :(
A summary of the Amazon summary: A harrowing story narrated by a sexless German who falls in love with a Jew during WWII. Between forbidden embraces, they discuss literature and art.
Wow what a striking cover.
Seems to represent the book perfectly.
— Ben Pieratt, 2006-05-08 22:31:00
very smart.
— Sudi, 2006-05-09 08:46:00
too bad the designer is such an a-hole. He is likely taking all the credit for what somebody else did. Who is the photographer?
— nan, 2006-05-09 14:05:00
Perfect . . . the symmetry plays great symbolism considering the subject matter.
— C. A. Cherry, 2006-05-09 16:06:00
nan – perhaps I’m missing something, but if you’re going to blame someone for not crediting the photographer, it should be us, as we don’t have a photographer (or illustrator) specification form, yet.
We hope to change this in the not-so-distant future.
— Ben, 2006-05-09 16:48:00
...dang. That’s definitely extremely striking.
— Stephen Carradini, 2006-05-10 16:12:00
What a striking cover!
— Austin Storm, 2006-05-15 10:10:00
Great idea, but that Bank Gothic couldn’t be more inappropriate.
— neven, 2006-05-24 16:23:00
If they’d scanned the spine it wouldn’t curve at the bottom like it does.
— plesecq, 2006-05-25 09:06:00
Reminds me a lot of the cover to Auto de Fe (Fay? I can never remember correctly)... I think Auto de Fe better though… then again this might look better in person rather than digital, now that I think about it.
— jdube, 2006-05-25 18:04:00
nice impact. the title would be more effective if it were curved to follow the spine.
— s., 2006-06-01 06:03:00
is that a man and a woman or guy on guy action????? i couldn’t tell!
— confused, 2006-07-05 15:44:00
They look too tanned to be part of a “harrowing story” set during WWII. I would have liked paler skin, although I must say the tans they have go beautifully with the spine colors.
— Haeddre, 2006-07-27 15:30:00
In one word, Provocative!
I love it.
— Kendra, 2006-07-30 15:00:00
jaw drops
I agree that the text seems a little off…although it does attempt to unify the slightly conflicting (but beautifully appropriate) styles of modern-looking photograph with old-fashioned book spine.
I think their skin is mostly just edited and darkened in shadow to go with the rest of the book-
it doesn’t look really tan to me. And I think that’s not a particularly big worry. (And that’s definitely a woman on the right-look at the hands and the curve of the back.)— Bewildebeest, 2006-08-25 11:17:00
The arm in the bottom right panel is really odd looking.
— perry, 2006-08-25 12:50:00
The anachronistic font, the failure to make the type conform to the slightly rounded antiquarian book spine, the weirdly disorienting out-of-proportion relationship between this book spine image and the figures behind or to either side of it, the gold stamping that gets inelegantly cut-off at the top and bottom of the book spine image (how much trouble would it have been to clone these out?), the lamely done shadows on the flesh to either side of the book spine (which helps account for the weird lack of proportionality already mentioned), the unappealing prospect of having to touch all that air-brushed flesh, the sloppiness of the unidentifiable scrap of flesh at the top left side of the book spine… I guess, “Yuck” is my aesthetic response to this overreaching, under-executed example of splicing two extremely “stock” images together, slapping on an ill-chosen font and calling it cover design.
— M. Kellner, 2006-11-04 12:06:00
first time i was on this site i saw this cover and everytime i try to think of a very skillfully done cover i think of this one…
— alice, 2007-01-20 11:31:00
Hmmm… I don’t get it. The spine of a very large book is hovering in space so as to obscure two people embracing? Don’t even get me started on the perspective, text, and shadow tool. :(
— C-Dog, 2007-02-08 23:24:00
This would be ideal for “The Story of ‘O’”. Don’t you think?
— Ian B. Shimkoviak, 2007-02-19 16:10:00
but to finish up here: this is such a lovely cover. Strong on the many levels mentioned, and some. Damn, it’s nice. Skin and spines does this to me…
— Ian B. Shimkoviak, 2007-06-08 19:50:00