Designer: David Pearson
title: Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
author: Walter Benjamin
publisher: Penguin, 2008
Designer: David Pearson
title: Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
author: Walter Benjamin
publisher: Penguin, 2008
We Made This has a nice write up of the new Great Ideas series coming out of Penguin. As usual, they’re mostly designed by David Pearson, and they’re mostly insanely awesome.
Check them out here.
Our personal favorites are Nature, The Evils of Revolution, and Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which you see to the left.
— Ben Pieratt, 2008-07-02 21:39:00
Ohhh I need it!
Gotta love the “book inside the book” concept when it´s so nicely done… Pearson´s work is inspiring.
— Ana., 2008-07-03 04:55:00
wow.
very clever
very very clever
— im88, 2008-07-03 05:16:00
these look beautiful, I love the work Pearson does for Penguin – I bought a lot of books from the great loves series he did and i think i’ll most likely end up buying a lot of these as well. I particularly love the George Orwell one, reminds me wonderfully of the classic penguin crime books.
— rosy, 2008-07-03 05:37:00
wow. he is a genius and I love the «great ideas» book covers.
— Marta, 2008-07-03 06:33:00
I collect this man’s work. Very few people make the book as cherished an item as Pearson. The historic design vernaculars that these covers span is remarkable. Absolutely perfect.
It’d be fun to know more about the process on these. How much is found art/pick up from old posters/books and how much of it was drawn and redone and made original? Phil and a few of the other artists who created these covers are wonderful designers as well. Long live the UK.
— Ian Shimkoviak, 2008-07-03 09:47:00
Brilliant. I must have this.
— mike, 2008-07-03 09:56:00
hm, the ‘Nature’ cover is strongly reminiscient of the artwork on the Pulp ecology-themed album ‘we love life’
— laura, 2008-07-03 16:08:00
Laura, I was thinking that too!
These are really nifty covers. As a whole they’re really sweet, but there are a couple of duds in there… notably the “Concerning Violence” and “Man Alone with Himself” covers. But the one pictured here more than makes up for them.
I love green… only geniuses prefer green, don’t you know?
— C-Dog, 2008-07-03 18:48:00
awesomenessnessnessness.
— zach, 2008-07-03 20:11:00
Laura, pretty much every single book in this collection is a rip of something. They are beautiful to look at and hold, but that taints them somewhat for me.
— B, 2008-07-04 11:07:00
the two i recognize are the Camus- which is pretty much identical to alvin lustig’s “Sheltering Sky” and the Foucault, which is a carbon copy of the old Grove press Melville “Confidence Man.” Homages, i guess you’d call them
— peter mendelsund, 2008-07-04 13:40:00
I have always thought the spine was the weakest part of the series, but I like the concept.
— ERIC, 2008-07-05 20:58:00
Are we not smart enough to read through the comments and deem what is noteworthy ourselves? I find a highlight AND noteworthy button laughable, and the jacket design equivalent of the ‘Big Book look.’ Is anyone else with me here?
— Auguste, 2008-07-06 10:35:00
No, I’m not with you here Auguste.
I really don’t see the big deal in a Noteworthy highlight, nor do I find it insulting to my intelligence. I guess I’m just not that sensitive of a person to care about it enough to complain.
Also, I don’t really see this as a “Big Book Look.” Care to explain?
— m welch, 2008-07-06 18:03:00
Agree 100% with Auguste. The sidenote and the highlighting are like being squirted in the eye while eating grapefruit.
I quite liked the first two series of Great Ideas; they were handsome because the title pages they directly aped were handsome already.
This series seems like a lot of b-minus puns (get it, reproduction, snort) with little if any care for the content of the books. As Peter said, the repurposing of the Lustig Sheltering Sky is borderline shameless.
While I’m at it, scanning and rearranging Hans-Eduard Meier’s approximation of 5th-century BC Greek lapidary lettering for Plutarch is just ahistorical looniness. And the Proust cover looks as English as a tea cosy. Also my cat’s breath smells like cat food.
— Dean, 2008-07-07 05:30:00
Speaking of “homages”, The Future of an Illusion is right out of Daniel Pelavin’s studio, fifteen or twenty years back.
To be expected in an historical series, or going too far?
— Tom McKeveny, 2008-07-08 05:54:00
for m welch:
http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/20070211maloney.pdf
— Auguste, 2008-07-09 15:53:00
Auguste—
I know what the Big Book Look is, but fail to see how the example shown or a select few in the link apply. To me, they are much more imaginative that the simplicity of big book.
And it’s not that I don’t like big book (I practically worship Paul Bacon), but I was just looking for some clarity on your thought about it and not a pdf.
— m welch, 2008-07-09 16:13:00
There is nothing big book about these. The refinement of the design, the delicate elegance with which they work as a series and make you want to own all of them and not just one, as well as the pure use of color and post-modern quotation even down to the reproduction value is wonderful to hold, read and own. That to me is the success of a book. These are not the type of books that you buy because you like to read or enjoyed the cover. You buy these to sit on your shelf because they are beautiful and culturally rewarding to own and behold. They are a pleasure to read in a modern day sense as well because of how short they are. Perfect little doses of quality reading. That part of it’s design was thought our through and through by Mr. Lane (years ago in founding Penguin) and all the designers who worked on these. If anything, it is a continued “homage” to the paperback and the concept of quality, affordable reading for the masses—a legacy Penguin has a stronghold on (and with these type of editions and the designers they choose to work on them, Penguin makes it all that more clear that it still cares about that legacy deeply).
The design here is more than about the cover. Unfortunately, that is what we are here to discuss mainly.
— Ian Shimkoviak, 2008-07-09 19:06:00
m –
I merely mean the gawdy highlight and noteworthy arrow as dumbed-down just like I find the majority of Big Books. Simple as that, my comment.
— Auguste, 2008-07-10 06:56:00
The highlight on the noteworthy comments is what bugs you???? Who cares man!? Ha! I guess it is a bit bright. Peter is an accomplished designer, so maybe that way the reason for the noteworthiness of it all… geeez. We should all get on the phone. This type of communication blows sometimes.
— Ian Shimkoviak, 2008-07-10 12:21:00
Are these in shops yet? The designers that the ‘homages’ were meant for might have been credited on the books?
— Lucy, 2008-07-11 02:04:00
The covers in question carry the (original) artist’s credit and permission was sought from their families before proceeding.
As for a similarity to Pulp’s album cover, I couldn’t agree more – but you try setting those letters on one line!
By the way, Jarvis Cocker’s latest album cover is a pastiche of Penguin’s 1966 cover for ‘Jubb’ (Keith Waterhouse).
It’s a caring, sharing world …
— David Pearson, 2008-07-15 05:01:00
wow,wow,wow,wow,wow,wow,wow, wow …
— flexa, 2008-07-21 10:53:00