Book Covers - The Microscope and the Eye: A History of Reflections, 1740-1870

This cover is just beautiful. The colors, the iconography, the understated but clear hierarchy—all make for a great finished piece. But the most surprising detail, obviously, is the lack of a spelled-out title. It reminds me of the old game show, Concentration—you know the end of the game where the contestants “solve the puzzle”. I know many Art Directors and Marketers would laugh at the idea, not to mention the author. But when the result is this good, I imagine it was hard to find fault with it.

— , 2008-11-28 03:32:00 -0500

I could have sworn you guys posted this about a year back…
Anyway, yes, a great cover. I think people had some problem with the eye illustration being so graphic in contrast to the very well illustrated microscope. But yes, a very nice, simple concept and execution. Can’t go wrong. Isaac rules.

Maybe it was on another book blog? I apologize if this is a repeat—I am newer to Fwis and may have missed this one. (i am not finding it in the post archive.)

Personally, I love the contrast between the two illustrations. Given that the book covers a 130 year period, it makes some sense to incorporate a sort of style chronology, even if it is abstract and doesn’t match the dates.

Yeah, no, that’s exactly the point people were making. That the difference in illustration shows the passing of time. I’m sure the designer thought about that in making the cover. Very nice.

I think this was on the Josephs cover blog. Isaac did this stellar cover with the title made out of pin pricks that was absolutely amazing.

Thanks for posting something from the largely unrepresented University Press front. So much great stuff there.

Funny that you should mention the cover for Obsession (the one done with pin pricks). That was in the queue to come up soon. Check back for it next week.

I first saw this in a little book store near Ohio State and was instantly drawn to the eye. It really pulls you in. Isaac is awesome at what he does. This along with Obsession are two of my favorites of his because they are so thought out but so simple and eye catching.

It reminds me of the color beige. Everybody likes beige well enough and it’s classy in certain design situations… but who really gives a shit about beige?

i wonder why the eye doesn’t match the illustration style of the microscope…

ian b. shimkoviak—you must´ve seen it on “the book design review”, it was posted there about a year ago:

Also, the designer Isaac Tobin explains there why the illustrations´ styles don´t match:

“I actually drew the iconic eye as a placeholder, intending to replace it with a period-appropriate engraving. However, when I brought in an engraving, I found that I didn’t like it as much as the original. I think it was just a bit flat without the contrast in styles.

It was pretty difficult to find a microscope from the right period (1740–1870) that still read clearly as a microscope. My first comp used a microscope from 1890 that looked great, but I thought it was important to be as historically accurate as possible. Most of the microscopes from that era look even less like contemporary microcopes (they often had fixed vertical scopes). The author actually found the final microscope image. FYI, the title is fully written in text on the spine, and a book like this will almost always get displayed spine out.”

I think in the end, if it was nit for that eye, the cover would not grab you as much. So that eye is really the focal draw-in for this cover. It’s nice. I felt different about it a year ago, but this time around I appreciate it. Funny how that happens.

sorry for being so harsh- i just don’t see the appeal at all- to me it is predicable and boring and a little academic and dry and kinda designer smartassy without the conceptual heft to really pull it off

I’m a huge fan of Isaac’s work, and I think this cover is very lovely… but I will admit I think there is too much white at the bottom of the eye.

C-Dog, if you worked at a University Press, which I’m guessing you do not—you might think of this differently. I think it’s very shocking that he was able to get away with a small/delicate subtitle (Chicago seems to be more open to them) as well as not having all the text on the front of the jacket.

Love the quote about beige. If I see something that is plain and boring and overly popular, I call it beige.

The only thing I don't like about it is that I hate trying to guess the word that the picture represents. Haha, although it may seem simple, it agitates me that I can't be concrete. Especially since I couldn't remember the word "Microscope" for a while.

I just feel like the eye is so sad and boring. Though the idea of the evolution of iconography is a pretty interesting one, if subtle.

Looking at the tiny icon amongst the bought together/also bought titles, that eye really jumps out at you. I can imagine some of my philosphy-studying friends being pretty happy with this cover. There’s a lot of dry design work in that field.

Does the border really sit closer to the bottom like that? I imagine it’s Amazon’s fault, but it does interesting stuff to the dynamics combined with the eye looking up like that.

I just love the fact that some publisher had the stones to sign off on a book with no title. You don't see that every day. I like the cover. It has interesting texture and a clean, minimalist approach that would make me pick it up to see who designed it.

i love the use of pictures to convey words. I love how its not a classic title, with only words. this is a book i would pick up.