Book Covers

Covers.fwis.com is a place where we often critique, for better or worse, other designer’s work, in the hopes that we can congratulate effective, meaningful design. But we also like to practice what we preach, and so we’re going to continue to post covers that we ourselves design, as well as ones that are submitted by fellow designers.

The author, Damon Linker, was an editor at First Things a publication whose goal is the ‘end of secular politics’ and is read by many players in Washington, including the White House staff.

‘Theocons’ is about a small and relatively unknown group of religious intellectuals who influence American politics through the elimination of secular politics.

We hope that concept is relatively straightforward and that you check out the book, it’s an interesting read and does a good job of staying impersonal and objective throughout.

— Chris Papasadero, 2007-06-25 10:17:00

This is a great cover. Clean and simple. The title seems to be in KopyKattKut-medium? Anyway, I always thought the spacing on that face was odd. Also, the “With a New Afterword” seems to be floating off…

Otherwise, to me, the concept here is nice and clean. The separation of the cross graphic is interesting. Does it symbolize the separation of church and state or anything like that?

I like the concept, but I don’t know…it would have been awesome if the pub let you take all the type off the cover, and put it on the back. Of course, that rarely happens.

I didn’t realize that you guys had done this one! I liked it a lot when I first saw it.

Congrats Fwis! Is this your first work for The RandomKnopfAnchorShockenPantheon Group?

Looks good.
When I think about the political circus show and the big lumbering beast that is the “Theocons,” I think of the Republican mascot, and I can imagine a treatment that depicts a close crop on an elephant head looking straight on – truck hanging low – with a giant black cross painted eye to eye and forehead to trunk; and big, sinister looking tusks curling up like devil horns.

Also, Chris: “religious intellectuals”? I can almost guarantee you won’t be using that phrase anymore if you can get your hands on a copy of David Mills’ “Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism.” Haha. Trust me.

What does that mean? That if you’re Christian you can’t also be a deep thinker who engages with philosophical ideas?
Just wondering…

Hi Nick,
Absolutely not. Kierkegaard was a deep thinker who explored the philosophical aspects of Christianity. And I love him deeply for it. But he pretty much came to the same conclusion that “Jesus” did in terms of institutionalized religion, and we’re not even talking about that, we’re talking about a very politicized, institutionalized religion…
Peace.

Yes I think it’s a fair point about the political mobilization of religion. I guess I’m sensitive to a current larger atheistic push against belief in a transcendent God, blaming it for the world’s problems. To quote atheist de jour Christopher Hitchens; ‘religion poisons everything’ I don’t think he’s just talking about institutionalized religion. As a postscript, Jesus never set himself against institutionalized religion, just the abuse of it and hypocrites within it.
thanks for your response

Nick, everybody else here is moaning right now about the inevitable course this thread was bound to take. Good to know we haven’t let them down.

Let me add: the current atheistic push against religion is just as political as those they are pushing against. And Hitchens is one of the most irascible and dogmatic of opponents. It all boils down to this: How do you define “God”? And what I was getting at earlier was this: after you read David Mills take on the battle between science and religion, you will be very hard pressed to take the creationists – and the religious “scientists” claims – as anything other than wishful thinking. Seriously, test yourself; read the book. But that all has to do with the politics of evolution vs. creationism in the classes, the larger political battle for the public mind (be sheep! submit! be passive! so we in power can run our agendas through!), etc. etc… but all that is very far removed from the deep, honest search for truth within (which Kierkegaard for example was concerned with) and the taste for the ineffable mystery of Spirit which you and I, Nick, seem to share. Bless you.

sorry the ‘heh heh’ was to Chris Eric, I wasn’t meaning to laugh at your comments. Thanks mate.

Not wanting to hijack the book blog but as a parting comment; I believe in creation, not sure if that means I’m a ‘creationist’ in the American sense of the word. But I think do think that arguments about creationism vs evolutionism often seem to be based, as so many post-modern arguments do, not on the interplay of ideas but around the question of who gets to be the victim and who is then cast as the oppresor.

Hey it’s nice to chat in this way. Perhaps if you’re intersted, we can exchange emails instead of boring everyone else to tears. My apologies :) I like the strength of the cover and also would have lobbied to get the text off it
Thanks again

Hi Chris – good for you. Skepticism is indeed healthy.
Please allow me to make one last comment about my book recommendation and then I am outta here. There is a huge difference between people who are defending their beliefs due to (often subconscious) emotional attachments, political motivations, etc, etc, and people who are earnestly searching for truth, however unpleasant the fruits of that search may be. Most “religious” people are operating from a position of trying to defend their “beliefs” (let’s be honest: their programming) against any form of reason, science, logic or common sense that contradicts the Bible, no matter what, and that is why “religious intellectual” – especially when it comes to politics – is an oxymoron. Please, challenge yourself; read the book.
Best,

I love the fact that you took on a much manipulated image (I think you could do an entire blog on different iterations of the U.S. flag) and still came up with an orginal solution. Here is my stab at it:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://people.uleth.ca/~hall/images/book-new-big.jpg&imgrefurl=http://people.uleth.ca/~hall/&h=580&w=420&sz=165&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=_neM_JC6aX-ITM:&tbnh=134&tbnw=97&prev=/images%3Fq%3Damerican%2Bempire%2Bfourth%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DG

The gap in the cross is a purely visual tie-in. It comes from the donkey and elephant.

One man’s Delicato is another man’s KopyKattKut-medium. Didn’t get that tie-in with the donkey/elephant symbols. But it never bothered. It was just an interesting way of treating that cross, and it came in handy on a number of levels. The cover is great. Good work people.

It was posted by the folks at FWIS who run this site. They designed it. It is a designed cover. It is worthy of noting and posting here too as it was art directed by Gall, one of the top book cover designers living. And so the list goes. Hence it lives here, at covers.fwis.com. For the pleasure of us all…

LOL. I didn’t even noticed it was by FWIS. Ouch. Sorry. But I’ve seen far, far better from the FWIS boys. This is fugly.

i saw a cover nearly identical in concept to this one the other day at borders, with the same subject matter. :(

I like the type choice, but why the different type for the author? The asymmetry of the type usage is a little weird to me. The only thing in a sans is the authors name.

Simple and direct. Looks good. Not sure I like all the type on the right.. seems like they could have put it on the back.