WHAT IS YOUR BOOK COVER TRYING TO TELL US?
PART THREE: COLLECT ’EM ALL



[Kasey gets in on the fun.]

Did I really say that the New York School, largely through Joe Brainard-influenced cover art and design, was the first successfully branded poetry sensibility in U.S. history?

Obviously, I was smoking some pretty strong Ray Bremser. Because, duh, as everyone and their juvenile delinquent cousin Sal knows, the Beats beat Team NY to the punch, largely through Lawrence Fernlinghetti’s City Lights Books.

Dig the klassic logo, above, still in use after half a century, man.

Latch on to the first printing of Howl, below—that “look” would be used on countless books for, like, decades, daddy-o.



How many City Lights books did you buy or "check out" from the library, knowing nothing about their authors, based only on the hep-cat vibes you associated with that muted but solid late-50s design and the words "Pocket Poets Series"?

Ever wonder how Ferlinghetti came with the idea for City Lights's signature look? Blow your wig snorting this 18 karat account.




My own first full-length book, How to Proceed in the Arts, was published during then start-up Faux Press's first year of operation, 2001. My editor wanted to keep inventory and costs low through short run printing, and wanted a design that wouldn't be completely fucked up by the less-than-professional printing process. He also, as he told me, wanted something that "anyone would notice, out the corner of their eye, from across the room."

The first year, the titles--which I believe were designed by Chris Mattison, who also designs books for Adventures in Poetry--were typeset in drop-out white over the author's name, which was white-boxed beneath it:



The effect, if anyone saw more than one title at a time, was memorable, but just shy of striking. As single items, they aren't embarrassing.

For later editions, artists were asked to hand-letter the title and author's name. The two single-author books published in the last series were done by David Larsen:



An inspired decision. These two not only look good together, they look just as fancy alone. Note the author/title position change-up--a nice touch, missing from the first year. We live and learn.

Faux is one of a few poetry presses that have what I like to call a "Collect 'Em All" or "Ruboff" design strategy. On one level, it's like a prompt from Amazon: "Like Eileen Myles? You may also enjoy Gary Sullivan." On another level, it's an assertion of lineage, art movement, at times even canonicity. Sun & Moon Classics, anyone?

Speaking of Sun & Moon ... I don't think any publisher has exploited the Collect 'Em All look as successfully as S&M and Green Integer's Douglas Messerli. Sun & Moon books, always just slightly undersized, sporting high art covers, had a particular, unmistakable look.

But the Green Integer books really feed fetishization. It's not merely their uniformity that seduces. As Faux's first year shows, uniformity can look haphazard, cheap. It's (a) the author pics--or drawing, in the case of Sappho--which give the books added warmth, and (b) the little touches at type level. Individuality expressed within a particular--this--set of limits.

The decision to keep author pics in black & white was obviously well thought out. It becomes a design element, but more important is that black & white gives the pics an "historical" feeling, which I think most of us subconsciously read as "canonized." Most poets will tell you they are against canonization as such. This, as Messerli I think groks, is most often because they are not, themselves, canonized. Authority still captivates; if it didn't, this design would have sunk the press by now.

Kasey included Krupskaya in his round-up, and it's true that this Little Press that Could has created a very distinctive brand that you might not even notice at first. But, if you look at pretty much everything they've done--here's their 2002 line-up--

you'll see that tell-tale slim rectangle mid-way at spine-side. You can barely see it here, but there's also the press's name, peeking halfway over the spine into the aforementioned rectangle.

Jocelyn Saidenberg, who publishes and co-edits Krupskaya with a roving band of fellow poets, told me she once had to send a batch back to the printer: they'd compensated for the "mistake," and readjusted the cover so the press name rode comfortably down the spine.

The books above--and Kruspkaya's output, generally--look hot. Great colors, decent image always just the right size, as Kasey noted, and fairly good use of type. You don't want just one. you want to collect them all, to be part of the scene. You want to join the movement.

But uniformity, as we've seen in the first year of Faux, doesn't always seduce. Tomorrow, we'll look at some design decisions from presses clearly cashing in on instant canonicity that often miss the mark. ...