Designer: Ben Pieratt
Other sites: The Book Cover Archive, the BCA Blog
Images: A few of them are hand-illustrated, most are from iStock. Flower illustration, Handbook on Faith, Hope and Love by Anna Melcon
Typefaces: Oh man. Lots. Sloop, Futura, Delicato, Historical FellType, Bello, Saloon, Foundry Gridnik, Agincourt.. and more, those are just the ones I can think of right now. It's a bit silly.
Specials: These were printed basic matte stock, with a bit of custom embossing. But the embossing is poorly registered, so I don't like to mention it as a selling point (I didn't handle the production on these. Fortunately and unfortunately.)
Publisher: Relevant Books
Genre: Religion
A while ago I thought it would be a good idea to interview Ben, the man who inspires all in the book world. As an avid reader of theology, I noted how fresh and innovative these designs were and wanted to hear the behind the lines. Thanks Ben!
—Jason Gabbert
I run the design shop General Projects. Since I am my only employee, you could say that I am a professional freelancer, but where's the fun in that. I work with a couple different developers so I wind up doing a good share of client management and self-intiated web product development (new stuff to be announced soon). Book cover design is one of those disciplines that I have a huge amount of respect for but don't consider myself to be terribly good at. I look forward to improving with age, as it is easily the most interesting of all the design subsets out there.
Beyond the usual suspects (ffffound, etc), I spend a lot of time looking at older design books and works. I have a small number of logo and design collections from the 50s, 60s and 70s that I pour over on a regular basis. Design used to be less of a lifestyle and more of a profession, and I have a huge amount of respect for the craftsmen of yesteryear. The discipline of working diligently with your hands yields all sorts sensibilities and wonderful details that I'm missing in my own work, and I hope to reclaim that with the right kind of effort.
When I left Fwis a year-or-so ago, we agreed that I would yield control of my old blog, Covers. As book cover appreciation is a hobby of mine which I have no intention of abandoning, The Book Cover Archive is my replacement for the fact. The main difference between the two is that I decided a while back that I felt uncomfortable making a habit of critiquing the work of my betters, so BCA is explicitly for the purpose of education and inspiration, which is why we put so much effort into cross-referencing our meta data. When I say "we" I'm referencing Eric Jacobsen, who coded the thing like a champ.
These were done about a year after I'd gotten out of school. I was working on a full-time contract basis for Relevant Books at the time, which was cool of them considering how little experience I had. They still get the most attention as anything else I've done, book cover wise (which isn't saying much as I haven't worked on that many covers), which can be frustrating simply because I have a hard time looking past all the poor design choices I made at the time. So it goes.
The Foundations of Faith series was an attempt by Relevant Books to resurrect historical theological texts and make them relevant to a new, younger audience. I think the target group was 22-35yr olds?
Cameron Strang, who runs Relevant and acts as its overarching CD, was very cool about the whole process. Gave me a lot of leeway and trusted my instincts. Very few constraints and only mild push back. The only real point of disagreement was with Imitation of Christ, which he wound up handing to a different designer because my designs were too masculine and he had to get the other half of the population involved too.
Hopefully, the meanings of the designs are fairly apparent upon first viewing. Only a few of them really try and delve into conceptual obscurity. The one I get asked about the most is A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (the one with the horse). The design for this one started with the fact that the author, John Wesley, was known for riding across the countryside on his horse, stopping and preaching as needed. As I played with the imagery and the content of the book, the horse took on a life of its own and became symbolic of a Christian's struggle with his faith. Ultimately the design wound up being an exploration of man's rebellion in the presence of the Holy Spirit, represented by the band of light which envelopes it.
It's worth noting that I ripped off MM/Paris for the band of color (see below). Once I saw the imperfect geometry and use of color in their poster, I knew it was the right direction for the symbolism I was going for. Unsure how I feel about having referenced their work so directly. I suppose it's legitimate but I still feel a bit bad about it, especially considering that I apparently copied Edward Bettison's design for Orthodoxy, though I have to say that I have no direct memory of this so it must have been working on a level of subconscious inspiration.
11.03.09 // Nate said:
These are just fantastic. The inventiveness with which the subject matter was approached is both novel and necessary, I think; these great theological thinkers deserve to appear relevant.