Abstract
The early to mid 1970s was a time of restraint in book cover design, perhaps reflecting the broader social and cultural upheaval brought on by a decade of war, racial tension, and political scandal. The volume of truly innovative work in book cover design dropped, the result of a number of factors within the world of publishing, most notably an increasing corporatization of commercial publishers. Small presses like New Directions and Grove, presses that had played such a pivotal role in encouraging progressive design in their covers, were eclipsed by big publishing houses. Editorial committees and executive boards replaced dedicated individual entrepreneurs like Laughlin and Rossett.1 At the smaller presses that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, the publishers perceived their task as a privilege to present the work of their authors and a duty to present their audience with important literature. On the other hand, the larger presses that dominated the 1970s seem more authoritative, almost dictatorial in their pursuit of commercial success.
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Chapter 4-The Bland Breeding the Bland: American Book Cover Design Disoriented
Philip B. Meggs, A History of Graphic Design, Third Edition (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1998), 355–61.
Valerie Brooks, “New York Books,” Print, November/December 1982, 50–1.
See Steven Heller, “[Sutnar],” Eye, Summer 1994, 44–56; Allon T. Schoener, “Sutnar in Retrospect,” Industrial Design, June 1961, 732–7.
In her analysis of the corporate and design realms, historian Maud Lavin makes several astute observations about the interrelationships of design and corporate identity. Drawing on cultural critics like Stuart Ewen and a bit of Lacanian psychoanalysis, she notes that design increasingly served to promote corporations as sanctified individuals with a sort of paternalistic authority. Maud Lavin, “Design in the Service of Commerce,” in Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History, ed. Mildred Friedman (New York: Harry Abrams, 1989), 127–43.
Milton Glaser, Ivan Chermayeff, and Rudolph de Harak. “Some Thoughts on Modernism: Past Present and Future,” in Design Culture: An Anthology of Writing from AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, ed. Steven Heller and Marie Finamore (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 133.
Hank O’Neal, “This is Not a Comb,” The Graphic Art of Paul Bacon (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: Sordoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University, 1999), 11.
Authors’ interview with Bacon, 28 March, 2003.
Hank O’Neal, “This is Not a Comb,” 11–2.
Stanley I. Grand, “Jacket Design by Paul Bacon,” The Graphic Art of Paul Bacon (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: Sordoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University, 1999), 16.
Quoted in Steven Heller, “The Man with the Big Book Look,” Print 56,1 (2002): 49.
Heller, “The Man with the Big Book Look,” 48–57.
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© 2005 Princeton Architectural Press
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Drew, N., Sternberger, P. (2005). The Bland Breeding the Bland. In: By its Cover. Princeton Archit.Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-56898-633-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-56898-633-5_5
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