And I understand the appeal. Sure, I could bullshit some reason about how mid-century literature represented a peculiar confluence of critical taste and popular appeal that has polarized since, where being middlebrow wasn't a bad thing and Norman Mailer was writing in Playboy, and we're all a little nostalgic for a time when the bestsellers weren't just Twilight and whatever Glenn Beck barfed up on paper. Actually, I'm not so sure that reason is total bullshit, but I'll admit that my personal reason boils down to "They look classy."
No designer credit, circa 1960Which brings me to this cover for Lawrence Durrell's Clea. My Dad gave me the 75% of the Alexandrine Quartet he owns and I've been trying to make my way through them ever since. The problem is, Durrell knows he can write but he doesn't know where to stop. Still, if I'm not in love with the contents, I'm very fond of the covers. All of the titles share the same font and image of a hand, but come in different colours. I took a picture of Clea only because it happens to be the one I'm reading now and it's in the best shape. The others have all been living pretty rough lives in my backpack.
The fonts used on the cover almost look the same, but they aren't. The slight differences actually end up making the cover look more unified, because using the exact same one would have been noticeable in its banality. It's interesting how the imprint on the side doesn't throw the book out of balance, but keeps it from becoming too open and plain. With too many new books, that just becomes another distraction in an already busy design.
You can't see it in the photo, but the handprint is pretty detailed. You can even see bits of the whorl of skin, a nice human touch. This cover is spare, elegant and perfectly edited. It's what I wish the book inside could be.
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