Miss Phi's Bookshelf: judge it by its cover

Judge It By Its Cover: Spring 2016 Best Book Covers

4/02/2016

Judge It By Its Cover: But she is not a sex kitten

3/11/2016

It feels trite and cliché to be talking about this in 2016, on Women’s History Month, but we digress. What is it with the sexual objectification of female characters on covers of books where women are the target audience? This isn’t new, there is an overwhelming amount of covers that follow the same formula, especially in the Urban Fantasy genre. It’s always the same: a sexy woman with a tramp stamp, striking a “come get me” pose, holding a weapon. We can’t deny that sex sells but why is it portrayed as the main theme of a story when there is actually very little sexual content inside? We’re going to use the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs as the an example for this subject.

We picked this series to talk about today because we are familiar with the story, having read the first four books. We were in denial about reading these books for the longest time (because the cover made us roll our eyes), until one day we ran into a video of a BookTuber we follow who was recommending it, so we thought we would give it a try. Once we actually got into the story, we thought it was such a shame that the cover was portraying something that doesn’t reflect what we were reading.

So why do we have a problem with our main character being over-sexualized? Well, because Mercy is not a sexual character. In fact, she is often described as the least sexy person ever, especially when she wakes up and smells all the dirty shirts on the floor to figure out what she is going to wear. Yet somehow, based on the cover, you’d think she walks around in low-cut jeans with her lace thong showing and she just can’t get enough male attention. Our point here, is that - while there is nothing wrong for a woman to be comfortable with showing off her body - this image does not fit this character at all, nor does it fit the events of the story; but because it is featured on the cover, it creates a preconceived notion for potential readers. You’re either going to be pleasantly surprised (like we were) or you’re going to be wildly disappointed when you actually read the book.

Just for a moment, let’s talk about the fact that Mercy doesn’t ever wear a crop-top. We went back and tried to find any description of her wearing anything other than simple jeans and a normal t-shirt with grease stains on it, and we couldn’t come up with anything. And what about the tattoos? We know she has some and we can’t confirm is she actually has a “tramp stamp” but we can confirm that the coyote paw one featured on the covers is actually hidden at all times. She doesn’t have it on display, ever. In fact, it is only ever discovered and explained during a scene where she is taking off her clothes in order to shape-shift.

On that note, the Mercy Thompson series is about shape-shifters and the paranormal. Why not feature those themes on the cover instead? In fact, each book focuses on a different type of “creature” (wolves, vampires, fae, demons, etc), so why not explore that idea to be highlighted as the main element of the cover design? Maybe that way, this book would be put in the correct category of Adult Fantasy and Urban Fantasy instead of Paranormal Romance.

We have nothing against the artist who created the actual illustrations for the cover. We actually think the art is very well done. It’s just targeting the wrong audience, in the wrong way. We can’t speak for everyone, but personally for us, as women who are very much into the geek culture, we don’t like feeling excluded by designs that feature the objectification of female leads for stories that don’t have anything to do with the subject of sex.

This isn’t a feminist rant. We are all about equality. We also don’t think that male leads should be overly-sexualized on the cover of a book either when the subject doesn't call for it. We just used Mercy Thompson as an example because we aren’t familiar with any books with an objectified male character on its cover.

What do you guys think about this topic? Have you read any books where the main character (male of female) is wrongly being objectified on the cover? Does that approach make you want to buy the book or shy away from it? Let us know in the comments below!

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Judge It By Its Cover: Covers Revealed - February 2016

2/29/2016

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Judge It By Its Cover: The Shadow Queen

2/20/2016

This cover is the reason this section even exists. No, seriously. About two months ago, we were browsing through Behance and we found a project from Sean Freeman, the designer who created the cover for The Shadow Queen. We immediately added it to our collections and decided to integrate a section in this blog that would allow us to combine our profession as Visual Information Designers with our love for books. The Shadow Queen was published on February 16th and now we finally get to talk about the cover!

When you buy a book, all you see is the final image, right there, finished, in front of you. Like we talked about on a previous post, if this design is good, you won't even stop and pay attention to it because it already conveyed the intended message. However, when you go behind the scenes and see what actually went into making this final product, you realize the process is no easy task and it is important to take a moment to appreciate it.

In fact, finding this project for the cover of The Shadow Queen is the reason the book is on our TBR list. Not only do we absolutely love the design, but getting to see the process actually raised its value. It's not only difficult to come up with a concept that will encapsulate the essence of a book, but to then have to figure out the best way to materialize it to get the desired outcome, that's where true creativity really shines.

This is a typography-based design and an image-based design at the same time. That is a really interesting thing to accomplish. You have a graphic element as the visual priority while at the same time having the type be at center stage, and they aren't competing with each other, instead they highlight one another in a truly perfect duet.

Simplicity was the first word that came to mind when we were trying to describe this cover. It's a very clean, uncluttered design and doesn't need any extra elements. This is also another reason why we loved seeing this project. For such a beautifully simple end result, everything behind it had to be incredibly complex.

There is also something to be said about the technique Freeman chose to create this cover. To get the realism of a carved apple, he actually carved an apple!

Needless to say, we can't wait to read this book and to then keep the beautiful cover on our bookshelf, looking awesome!

Read you soon,

___________________
About the designer:

Sean Freeman lives in East London, he creates typographic designs and illustrations for a varied range of clients, from advertising to music, editorial and publishing. His work has been featured in numerous books and magazines and is known to be unique, considered both dynamic and organic. See this project HERE

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Judge It By It's Cover: The Invisible Cover

2/06/2016

When we tell people we are Visual Information Designers, we are often met with raised eyebrows and questions like: “Is that like art or something?”. The truth is, “Graphic Design” just isn’t a good enough term anymore to properly label anything that has to visually convey a message. Like a book cover, for example; it is not art, it is information design; and if you’ve ever read Edward Tufte, you know that good design should be as nearly invisible as possible.

What? Invisible design? But that is logically impossible. No! Invisible design means that you will spend the least amount of time looking at the presentation and maximize the time focused on the content -or information- because the design was perfectly planned so that you didn’t have to spend any time figuring it out. Now, if we apply this principle to designing book covers, it means that the best of them will immediately tell you what you are about to read and you won’t even have time to think about it.

Ok, it may not be as simple as it sounds; so we’ll give you an example. Last week, when we wrote about great books with bad covers, we almost mentioned “Black Iris” by Leah Reader. We’ve heard this is a fantastic read and it has received a lot of praise and amazing reviews; we wish the cover would reflect that. The thing is, all we can see and focus on is what the designer did on Photoshop.

To be completely blunt, we immediately started picturing the PSD Layers and mentally clicking “layer style”, then “outer glow” options on the menu. In fact, when we discussed this cover, we realized we could probably recreate it (or come very close)…and we did.

Why is this so bad? Technically, we could recreate any book cover if we spent enough time analyzing it. The thing about this one, though, is that the design process is so obvious and in-your-face that we couldn’t focus on what it was trying to tell us, and therefore, it failed at doing its job as information design.

To further illustrate our point, we compared the cover of “Black Iris” with that of “The Martian” and “Cinder”. You may think these are completely different and have absolutely nothing in common, but actually, they all have the same basic composition: background, representative element, typography. They all have a non-white background, followed by it’s main element (or the thing that represents something about the book) in the middle and then the title and author in the foreground.

The big difference here is that book covers like “The Martian” and “Cinder”, while using the same basic composition and elements, show that invisible design is definitely possible to accomplish. Designs like these are not only beautiful, but functional and purposeful and those are the best kind…the only kind, actually. Just remember: “Good design is clear thinking made visible.” - Edward Tufte

Read you next time,

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Judge It By Its Cover: Good Lord, That Cover!

1/29/2016

Inspired by the latest Top 5 Wednesday topic: “Disappointing Eye Candy”, we decided to do it in reverse and talk about a few books we loved but made us yell: “Good Lord, that cover!”

1. The Historian

Such an interesting book! This was an instant favorite for us. The amount of research the author did is palpable and then she applied it into a story that not only makes sense historically, but is able to add a supernatural element seamlessly. Then you see the cover, and it doesn’t tell you anything. The image they chose -with the weird Renaissance man- feels like it's just pasted there, being random. You don't necessarily need an image to make it have meaning, but if you're going to make a type arrangement, at least try a little harder - talking about the second cover - that is just bad photoshop layer effects (careful there with Bevel & Emboss). The fourth cover tried to be better, drawing inspiration from the concept of vampires with the "blood" brushes but it fell a little short and just needed one extra push to make it interesting.

2. The Golden Compass

This one is especially sad for us, given how majorly awesome this book series is. Somehow, after 20 years, there isn’t a single edition of this book/series with a decent cover. No one has managed to create a concept that captures what this book is really about. Let us tell you something, this book isn’t about a girl and her bear, not even close. Yes, it’s true that Iorek, the Panserbjørn, was a pretty important (and cool) character but a secondary one still. Where are the dæmons? Where is the actual object this book is named after (or at least an appealing representation of it)? They could have even played around with the concept of Dust. So much content to choose from, so many wasted opportunities.

3. Mage Heart

Definitely, not a favorite, but still a good read, “Mage Heart” has some of the worst covers we’ve ever seen. It is difficult to pick favorites between the awful typography, no cohesive color theory, the weird blurry images, the overwhelming clutter, the amateur-looking Photoshop…It’s all pretty bad. We must give props to the designer that made the cover for the latest edition, though. The 2012 cover definitely redeemed itself with a high-quality illustration and a better use of typography. However, it’s still a little off with the concept, because: Why is there a Geisha? She wasn’t Japanese.

4. Ella Enchanted
This was a great book to read when we were in our teen-years. Even now, it's just a good story. Something interesting happened with the covers here: The first one has a more mature style that doesn't appeal to its target audience; the second one feels like they wanted to bring the story into modern times. It's basically the same concept as the first one but overdid it with the Photoshop; The third one is actually good, with a lovely illustration and well integrated typography. They got it right and they should have stopped there; but no, because the fourth one is just terrible. Somehow, the last cover turned this book into a weird modern-day fairytale comedy, not to mention the fact that it connects it directly with the awful thing that was the movie.

What do you think about this topic? Do you have any books that you loved but couldn't deal with the cover? Let us know in the comments below. We want to hear from you!

Read you next time,

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Judge It By Its Cover: Spring 2016 Best Book Covers

· Company Town by Madeline Ashby

· Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima

· Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke

· Night Speed by Chris Howard

· Rebel of the sands by Alwyn Hamilton

· Risuko by David Kudler

· The Raven king by Maggie Stiefvater

Judge It By Its Cover: But she is not a sex kitten

Judge It By Its Cover: Covers Revealed - February 2016

Judge It By Its Cover: The Shadow Queen

Judge It By It's Cover: The Invisible Cover

Judge It By Its Cover: Good Lord, That Cover!

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