Book Covers – Aaron

Personally, I strongly agree with the idea that in the current day, the artistic presentation of a physical copy of a book is important. In an age where reading no longer has to be digital, reading a physical copy is no longer simply about reading but about the physical copy itself. I am personally attracted to a beautifully-designed book, and it gives me a desire to own physical copies.

I liked Kidd's analogy comparing book covers to a "haiku" summarizing the story. The cover itself should be a reflection of the book's contents. In general, a book should be designed in a way that is physically appealing and also relevant to its contents.

This reminds me of last week's readings in which we were presented with some changes that overseas editors made to Japanese book's covers. I disagree with those editors' decisions to change some of the designs drastically, not because making book covers appealing is a bad thing, but because I don't agree with their arguments that overseas audiences have significantly different interests than the native audiences. The original book cover is designed to highlight the themes of the book; if editors feel that a translated book will appeal to international audiences, they should also assume that the themes highlighted by the cover should stay the same.

That being said, I'm still fine with editors changing book covers for other audiences, so long as the new cover still highlights the themes of the book. It's the ones that appeal to misleading expectations that I have a problem with.