Just look at this.
To scan the new arrivals and pull this selection from the shelves and tables took me less than one minute.
Seven publishing houses.
Eight designers.
The averted, cropped off or masked face of a woman tells me nothing except that the designer and publisher don't want to be held accountable. It's the pinnacle of non-committal design.
I will leave it to others (who have read the books) to determine what the design ethic at work across such a broad spectrum of subject matter, not to mention cross-section of the publishing industry, has to say, if anything, about gender relations.
But I will say that it is unsettling to witness publishers and designers churning out the exact same visuals as each other in a year when the book is loudly rumored to be on its last legs.
It brings to mind a biologically deficient strain of corn, its pesticide-protected field blanketing the continent, feeding us all we can eat and fueling us as far as we can go until that one microbe who has the doomsday genetic code rides in on the wind of an uncovered sneeze and turns the corn fields and our dinner tables into wastelands.
I know it's not as apocalyptic as all that, obviously. Just as anyone who works in a decent bookstore knows that paper books are,
indeed,
very long for this world.
You can just put me in that camp that thinks we should be encouraging diversity wherever we find it, you know, for the health of the species.
I want to sell your books, guys, but you make it a hell of a lot harder when they all look the freaking same. Designers, don't you all talk to each other? Publishers, don't you look at what the other ones are doing?
Oooooooh, I see.
You do.
It's a little thing to many, maybe.
But I think that good design has a lot to do with good life.
And bad design makes my head hot.
And collectively bad design that appears to be the product of an agreement amongst the largest publishing houses in the country makes me...turn away.
