Look Out, Chip Kidd

Posted 13 August, 2007 in Book News, Music, Publishing |

Fancy yourself a book designer? Ever wanted to see your very own cover art on the front of a classic book? Well, now you can. The folks at Penguin UK have a promotion whereby you can purchase a copy of a Penguin Classic, and they’ll slap your preferred choice of cover art onto the “naked” covers of the chosen title.

As a promo, they’ve commissioned a number of well-known musicians to create personalized covers for the series. These include Beck’s cover of Le Grand Meaulnes (left image) and Ryan Adam’s startling oil painting on the cover of Dracula (right image). You can view screen shots of the other musicians’ creations here.

I can see it now: innumerable proud mommies throwing their children’s kindergarten finger-paintings on the covers of Henry James novels, or paint-by-number watercolours affixed to Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. This notion makes me shudder the way I shudder every time I hear “The Ode to Joy” as a cell phone ringtone.

If I were to do this, I’d choose Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and slap a nude photo of Kobe Tae on the front, or maybe one of those Britney Spears commando shots. That’s just the kind of sick bastard I am. (Hey, they are “naked” Penguins, after all.)

(Thanks to Queen B for the tip.)

1 comment to “Look Out, Chip Kidd”

August, August 14th, 2007 at 2:32 pm:

• It’s an interesting idea, but I’ve never been one for hand-made stuff being applied to mass-produced books. These probably wouldn’t wind up being presentation copies, and you’d have to worry about using media that wouldn’t damage the book, would hold up to wear and tear… and of course wouldn’t feel like you were holding some kind of craft fair/boutique hand-made-but-completely-useless notebook with extra-heavy paper stock (including whole leaves and flower petals embedded in the pages)… Frankly, I’d rather stick with Chip Kidd (unless of course I could upload an image and get Penguin to print it on a decent cover stock… in which case where do I sign up?).

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