/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18820870]

Why in Gods name have book covers gotten progressively worse and worse? People go to college and get paid good money to produce this sterile garbage. Fucking Barnes & Nobles ruined everything

[Anonymous No.18820974]

This pretty much applies to everything today, not just books.

Everything has to be corporate friendly, and they prefer things that are simple and inoffensive.

And the pencil pushers in any office always want to seem like they're doing something, so they often change things just for the sake of change.

This book cover was also probably cheap to produce.

[Anonymous No.18821217]

Decline in product design is an outer symptom of inner decline in the institution producing it.

[Anonymous No.18821235]

Semi-related.
Thoughts on these?

[Anonymous No.18821251]

>>18821235
Top middle, bottom left are OK. Don't care for the rest.

[Anonymous No.18821269]

>>18821235
Top Left and Bottom Left are alright, use a different color than stark white as a backdrop and Top Middle is okay, scrap the rest and start over

[Anonymous No.18821287]

They’re just design trends. They try to be on-trend so that people who buy books based on their covers (none of us here because we’re actual readers, right?) will be nudged toward a purchase.

[Anonymous No.18821292]

>>18820870
They're both awful desu.

[Anonymous No.18821300]

>>18820974
This, but also because people will buy anything that are trending. They don't care about the cover, just the big name in them, and they want them very big to show everyone HEY I READ THIS GUY. Some people still put effort in their covers, but those have a small circle of readers and do not have a boarding "thinking" for them.

[Anonymous No.18821319]

>>18820974
Pretty much this. Minimalism is the go-to design of our current time.

[Anonymous No.18821330]

>>18821235
All those are fine to me except for the bottom middle and right. The bottom middle is especially bad since it's apparently a sci-fi story but in no way conveys that.

[Anonymous No.18821396]

>>18821330
>since it's apparently a sci-fi story but in no way conveys that.
For me, the part that conveys it is the part is explicitly said that

[Anonymous No.18821460]

>>18821396
Half-inch words at the bottom aren't going to make me pick this book up if I'm looking for a sci-fi. It's a shitty way to convey it.

[Anonymous No.18821633]

>>18821460
idk, the colored figures got me kinda interested.
if i were in a bookstore and saw it i'd open it up des

[Anonymous No.18821692]

>>18820870
I'm in the UK and my BM cover is even worse

[Anonymous No.18821737]

>>18821692
Tis decent. I have the same

[Anonymous No.18821911]

>>18821319
Dear lord who designed that first logo? Shit cracked the fuck out

[Anonymous No.18821969]

>>18821911
Late 19th century wasn't fond of efficiency in design.

[Anonymous No.18822153]

>>18821692
That's the best out of the two covers we have available to us here

[Anonymous No.18822218]

What do you guys think of these covers?

[Anonymous No.18822786]

>>18820870
>GET OFF MY LAWN!
Sorry gramps, your just no longer the target market.

[Anonymous No.18822799]

This is a cool book cover imo

[Anonymous No.18823684]

>>18822218
The first one is kind of bland, but not bad. The other two are good.

[Anonymous No.18823690]

>>18820870
I hate this Neuromancer cover

[Anonymous No.18823766]

>>18821300
>They don't care about the cover, just the big name in them, and they want them very big to show everyone HEY I READ THIS GUY.
As nauseating as it is, this is the #1 reason. It's something that reads clearly in a social media selfie or a youtube video. Everything today is an accessory.

[Anonymous No.18824263]

>>18820870

[Anonymous No.18824283]

>>18821217

[Anonymous No.18824295]

>>18821217
I meant to say “what a cool sentence” but take the extra deserved (you) here anyway >>18824283

[Anonymous No.18824376]

>>18821319
>he doesn't know the multi-million dollars of occult research that went into the new Bepis logo, incorporating knowledge of sacred geometry and Jungian archetypes
I'm actually not joking.
I won't post links.

[Anonymous No.18824389]

>>18821692
Picaresque is dogshit, I have the American Psycho copy that's an edgy-ass sawblade with blood splatter instead of the iconic cover

[Anonymous No.18824394]

>>18824263
Is it the Romanian comic adaptation lmao.

[Anonymous No.18824453]

>>18820870
It's cheaper for publishing houses to buy stock clip art than hire an artist to create a new design. At $17 a paperback they're already pushing their limits with buyers in stores (Blood Meridian goes for ten bucks on Amazon). If you think that's bad you should see the most recent versions of Ian Fleming's Bond books. Terrible. The pics I posted is the ones from 10-15 years ago and can never find them in used bookstore for obvious reasons

[Anonymous No.18824564]

>>18822153
holy shit

>>18824376
please post links

>>18824453
I get mine off abebooks for half amazon but I still want more. MS Paint would look better and I wish the consumer agreed, the dumb consumer that pays way more than I do for the same uglier thing

[Anonymous No.18825036]

>>18822153
God i hate nobodies like harold bloom and all these others that put their name all over the cover of someone elses work

[Anonymous No.18826072]

>>18825036
I agree, but Banville is generally seen as a Nobel prize contender so it is less of a trespass. They had to fill the empty space, I guess.

[Anonymous No.18826092]

>>18821217
This. Same with societies and their art.

[Anonymous No.18826099]

>>18820870
everything slowly gets worse including your own body especially your own body and then you die
that's what life is all about

[Anonymous No.18826113]

>>18826099
You age like milk.
I age like whisky.

I FUCKED YOUR DAD.

[Anonymous No.18826117]

>>18826099
Lmao is that seriously what toblerones look like now?

[Anonymous No.18826195]

>>18820870
Most book consumers are women, hence the trend to toned down and whimsical new covers.

[Anonymous No.18826369]

[Anonymous No.18826402]

>>18826117
All packaged snacks have shrunk by like 50%, it's absolutely baffling. I assume that a regular buyer would have been oblivious to this change because the evil masterminds probably shrunk them a little bit every year. But I bought a Mars (or Lion, I don't remember) last year to help myself with caramel in the middle of an existential crisis and the size of the thing was insulting. I have straight up decided to start boycotting these products entirely although my impact will be merely symbolic. Not only am I hurting myself with terrible junk food, I also have to bear the humiliation of paying the same price for a fraction of the poison.

[Anonymous No.18826495]

>>18821235
Learn colour theory immediately.

[Anonymous No.18827650]

>>18824394
It's not Romanian