By
Paul Biba
Mental Floss is one of my favorite blogs and I highly recommend it to all our readers. Today they have a post on unforgettable book covers. Not only the cover, but some actual history about each one. Do ereaders mean that cover art will become less important in the future – at least for books that are issued only in ebook format? I suspect this will be the case.
Born in Spain in 1893, artist Francis Cugat couldn’t have known what history had in store for him when he was commissioned by Charles Scribner’s Sons to create the cover for this monumental 1925 novel. As the story goes, Cugat finished the artwork way before F.Scott Fitzgerald finished the manuscript. When the publisher shared the design with Fitzgerald, he was so enamored of it, so inspired, he is thought to have worked the design into the fabric of the narrative. Where? Well one hypothesis is often cited in Nick Carraway’s description of Daisy, as the girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs. Another possible influence may been seen in the symbolic billboard eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. From the novel: But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift end¬lessly over it, you perceive, after a mo¬ment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic — their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but instead from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose.
Whether Fitzgerald was influence by the artwork or not, we may never know. And this is hardly the only mystery associated with the novel. For instance, no other Cugat book jacket has ever been identified, other than The Great Gatsby, and no one knows when or where the mysterious artist died. Sounds like Hollywood material, no?
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August 12th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Though it may seem on its face that book covers will be less important in the digital era… keep in mind that these e-books will largely be sold online and in poster ads, both of which are very visual mediums, and not limited to the same size and layout formats of a traditional book. Cover art will likely undergo a change, but I suspect it will stay with us for quite some time.
I suspect the real risk is to original art, as opposed to “click art” covers that are so much easier and faster to create from material gleaned from photo and art web sites.
August 12th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
When I started BooksForABuck, I thought book covers were a thing of the past. After all, eBooks don’t need to protect their pages. I soon learned, however, that readers still use cover art as a key decision factor. So, now I try to commission the best art I can afford.
Rob Preece
Publisher
August 12th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Book covers are one of those things in life I wonder about and don’t understand. They are extremely important when we are deciding whether or not to read a particular book – and I can’t understand why that is! I KNOW the cover has absolutely NOTHING to do with the quality of the content, yet I will judge a book by it’s cover. It’s something I have to be aware of and try not to do.
I doubt cover art is going anywhere, or at least some artistic representation of the book. They are very important. What I don’t like or understand (also) are the book trailers, and I unfortunately think they’ll get more popular. The trailers go the other way for me – why do I need a video to convince me to read a book? Why would anyone?
August 12th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Illustrations are very valuable. Perhaps that is why every article at TeleRead has one?
August 12th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
“Do ereaders mean that cover art will become less important in the future – at least for books that are issued only in ebook format? I suspect this will be the case.”
It was thought that would be the case with music, too. While it’s changed as music went from vinyl to CD to downloads, the cover art remained. I find it very useful while browsing my music library – it’s often easier to quickly recognize a picture than a printed title. I already find it useful in recognizing books online as I browse websites. I think they will remain, at least for recognition/identification, and perhaps also to influence sales, as has been mentioned. Hopefully future generations of e-readers will allow one’s library to be browsed by covers as well as lists.