Book Covers - The Secret of Scent

Here’s a question for everyone in the peanut gallery:

Is this too subtle?

I just wrote a long tirade about how this was too far gone in its assumption of the viewing audience’s tolerance of cleverness, but now that I look at it again, I’m not so sure.

Thoughts?

— , 2008-07-20 15:49:00 -0400

Actually, it gave me the perfect set up for the a-ha moment. In-your-face cleverness gets exhausting after a while.

I get it. The font is from the Chanel No. 5 label. Even the little “o” in “of” is from the “No.” on the Chanel label.

I like it alot.
Think I even would have dropped the “1 fl oz” at at the bottom, actually. I like the slight off-centeredness.
What font is it?

Not recognizable on a small preview in google reader. Immediately – at a bigger size here. I wonder how the jacket production supports the visual part of the concept… Has anyone seen the book itself?

This is so good it makes me tingle. It’s smart without being irritating, and I kind of wish I could touch it.

I love everything about this cover. The type and subtle design is perfect. I got it as soon as I saw it (even before I read the subtitle).

I still don’t get it…but then again, I’ve never purchased a bottle of perfume in my life. I must be going to all the wrong stores….

1 fl oz and ff are both gargantuan … if that Independent quote is scratch and sniff, releasing the sweet scent of perfume I’m all over this!

It’s a tough one to get at a glance, but I think that once you notice the fluid ounce at the bottom you remember that label and it comes together. It is a pleasant type treatment. Hopefully there is a scratch and sniff aspect to it all… That would push it over the edge.

Re: Boblet.
I’m pretty sure it’s Sackers Heavy Gothic and Sackers Light Gothic.

Faber UK always puts their logo on the front of their books like that, it’s sad sometimes but I think they made it work here.

“Think I even would have dropped the “1 fl oz” at at the bottom, actually.”

I was starting at the cover for quite awhile, actually, trying to figure it out and it wasn’t until I spotted that that I got it. Recognizing it, I think it is cute, but could be a bit too clever for its own good.

At first I was thinking degrees Fahrenheit. I was like, yeah because heat makes people smell. I’m dumb.
That it’s a label is not too subtle at all, at least once you see the “1 fl oz”. I’ve only ever passingly glanced at the Chanel No. 5 label, and though I wouldn’t call it obscure, it’s borderline nebulous. I think maybe the “o” confuses if your not familiar with the label. Would it have worked just as well without it?

No, the o is almost the whole point, I think.
Some people will get it and some won’t.
That is what makes it elegant and subtle – if it was made so that every single person on the planet got it, it would be spelling it out in capital letters, screaming. That is not clever, that is not subtle, that is not elegant.
That would be like sticking the actual lable on the book, and that would be awful, boring and not original.

it is wonderful and it works even when you don’t “get it.”
it being the it you mean, of course.

too subtle. i doubt customers would get it. we can’t expect them to pick it up as easily as we do.

^ A bit condescending, no? Especially considering that much of the audience for a book on perfume would almost certainly be familiar with the design of one of the most famous perfumes.

“too subtle”? I think the target audience would get it pretty quickly. If you are not familiar with Chanel you probably would have no interest in reading this book anyway. The title and subtitle pretty clearly explain what the book is about. Do the customers really need to get it immediately?
Readers are pretty smart people. I’m always offended when publishers and or designers assume the readers are idiots.

I agree that most people who would be interested in this book will have no problem seeing it. Even though I agree most people are morons, I will not therfore let it automatically follow that we shouldn’t have subtlery and elegance.
What would the world look like then? Idiocracy.

If a person knows anything about pop culture, fashion, or perfume they should know about Chanel and recognize this look right? So every book has an audience, demographic, or market and if a cover is understood by a high percentage of that market isn’t it doing its job?

I agree with C. Brock, most people that read books are highly educated, desire to be, or think they are. Yes, there are lots of morons out there but most likely the people reading a book about the science of smell will be educated in high fashion and familiar with Chanel and its effect on pop culture.

Do customers really need to get it immediately? Absolutely, if you want to sell the book. There are so many other covers on the shelf to grab their attention. But then again, barely any of those covers take any consideration to the book’s content, so what’s the difference.

I disagree that the customer has to get it immediately. There are so many amazing effective covers out there, many of which are on this blog, that you wouldn’t completely understand the concept til you read the book. As book designers our only job is to get the consumer to pick the book up. After that our job is done. You can do that in many different ways. It does not always have to be dumbed down and painfully obvious.

mike: “too subtle. i doubt customers would get it. we can’t expect them to pick it up as easily as we do.”

I don’t think I’d like to be included in that “we”. Whoever that may be. Keep me you of your boxes.

I think the most important question is: If a person was browsing in a book store would it catch their eye quickly enough to make the whole debate anything more than academic?

I have doubts. Yes, the cognoscenti will get the homage to Chanel, but as a percentage of browsers in book stores will they be significant enough to make the threshold that moves a title from also-ran to seller (let alone bestseller)?

So should we be designing for the target audience or for the masses? I encounter this quite often. The publisher defines the target audience, but then adds, “We want it to appeal to everyone”. I think this is a mistake. Is every book meant to be a bestseller? Does every book cover need to be dumbed down and have mass appeal? I don’t think so.

Some books pay the bills and it’s great to try to take it in a different direction, but it’s also great to finish it, and move on to the next good thing.

I think a book cover should appeal to everyone in terms of it’s design, not topic. It should open the doors for anyone to be attracted to it’s cover. That does not mean everyone will buy it. It just means that it’s not another piece of shit in the world. That it added to the visual landscape in a aesthetic and appropriate way.

This cover has well set type, a concept that drives it and a pretty wide audience range. It exploits a popular label and a popular sense: The nose.

For example, who would truly be the target audience for this book? I think that it has the possibility of appealing to a mass audience. Sure, it probably will attract a more thinking and analytical crowd. Mostly woman, ages 28-60. That’s a pretty mass audience though, then say teachers, students or social workers. Which I would tag as a target audience.

It’s the most famous perfume bottle in the world. Ever. If you don’t get it when you’re looking at a book about scents, with the word “Scent” on the cover, then you’ve gone out of your way to avoid a common place object.

if its the most famous perfume bottle in the world, then the designer shouldn’t have struggled so much to mimic it’s design.

-There is nothing in the design that indicates that the designer “struggled”.
– The title is sharp and clear. Even if you don’t “get” it, there are little doubt as to what the book is about.

There is a sublte hint to the chanel bottle. Screaming all the time is tiresome and pointless. Just because you didn’t get it doesn’t make it bad design.

I sense no struggle here, whatsoever. It appears pretty effortless to me, actually. All the placement is spot-on.

I never buy bottles of stink-good and I got it right away. Wouldn’t change a thing about this cover.

While I get the joke, the layout of the type doesn’t feel good to my eye. I’m not going to go into the tiny details though of why though, because it seems a bit obsessive and I reckon most cover designers don’t spend as much time designing the cover as these sites spend whinging about them! I don’t want to be ‘that neurotically-obsessive cover critic,’ ha. No one wants to be that guy.

The book industry is overpopulated with all-text covers. It would probably work well in any other medium, but runs a high risk of easily being mistaken as yet another “no-concept” all-text jacket…

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The typeface is not Sackers Gothic but most likely Engravers Gothic with some mechanical stroking for a heavier weight. It works to emulate the Chanel logo, but taking the shortcut rather than redrawing the type makes for some awkward shapes, especially the ‘S’.

And it’s hard to use Engravers Gothic unless it’s an al type cover. So this is a good take… Nice to see people here discussing the specifics of type forms…

It has the look- smart design-
Even if you don’t notice the “of” it’s great.

...my observation was regarding wether potential readers would get it, given it’s selling environment.

The biggest mistake designers/intellectuals make on blogs like this is assessing the work from the vacuum of this web page instead of the actual context it’s used in.