Knock Knock

[Dusty Marcos]

Hello!

Well, let's see. My name is Marcos. I live in Brazil (in a southern cold city called Londrina, ironically. We even have some London phone booths. LOL yeah, lame). I'm 23, I'm a Sraffie (the "hardcore" kind), obviously, and I'd really like to chat with other sraffies. The Book of Dust is coming up and it's really cool when you have other people to share the excitement with!!!

Well, what else? I'm a graphic designer, more specifically a book designer (I love books that much), and also I'm one of the directors of Brazil's Secular Humanist League (a non-profitable organization for the defense of humanist values in society and for general atheistic topics. We really like Dust). Pullman is my biggest hero, but he shares the spot with Joss Whedon (hardcore Whedonite too). I also love Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Rowling, and I read every sci-fi and fantasy story I can put my hands on.

Well, enough for today, folks.

PS.: I just found on google videos a footage of some fellow sraffies goofing around London. Jaya is among them. LOL pretty cool. Are there more videos?

[Jaya]

Hi Marcos, how did you find us?

The Book of Dust is coming up, but how far in the future it'll be published we still don't know. At the moment Pullman is mostly working on other things (see our news for updates).

What you do sounds really interesting, what sort of book design do you do?

[bethanwy]

Welcome to the forum.

[Dusty Marcos]

Hey guys, thanks!

Well, I've been visiting BttS for more than a year now. And Citagazze as well. I know that there's not a lot of things going on right now on "sraffieville", but Pullman is always popping up on the news now and then, so I'm always checking. I wanted to join the forum 'cause I got tired of not having anyone to talk about it besides my girlfriend. LOL

Well Jaya, I'm still finishing college, and I'm a trainee (or intern, don't know the right term) in a publishing company, where I can do the whole design work of a book - cover art, typographic choices, all kinds of stylistic and (mostly) ergonomic choices that someone made when you read a book and goes "aw, that's a nice book to read" - although the design work of the content is mostly invisible when done right. It's difficult to explain in english (the terminology varies a lot from country to country), but in a nutshell, I do everything in a book, except the writing.

[bee]

Hello Marcos! Welcome! You sound fantastic. (Fan of Pullman, Whedon, Gaiman, Rowling, Douglas Adams... You'll fit in just perfect!).

I have a friend/classmate from Brazil. She's from Teresina though, so rather a long ways from you. All the same, I have a newfound appreciation of Brazil, since she describes is amazingly.

I'd love to see some of your design work!

[Valrad]

Welcome to the forum Marcos. It's not lame that you have said phone booth in Londrina, it's actually pretty cool. Who doesn't like a little brittish air in a city? I'm equally excited about Book of Dust, but it has to come out already! The waiting...it's killing me!

You're a graphic designer? Wow, that's awesome. Any chance to see your artwork somewhere? I'd love to. Have a great time around here, and if you feel like, post in the HDM topics. No one gives them a hug...I mean a post, often

[Dusty Marcos]

Hey, you're all really cool, y'know that?? I feel very welcomed! I plan on visiting UK after graduating and it would be cool to meet some of you! You guys do meetings or something like that?

And if any of you someday come to Brazil, I'll be more than glad to help you out with anything (even as a host, for sure). It's a pretty and vast country here, but also very ecletic. South Brazil is completely different from the north. South had a lot of european and japanese colonies in the past, and north is really sunny and beachy and has that kind of "natural paradise" feel to it. And then there's Rio which has the best of both worlds. So it's quite hard to define our country to foreigners.

Well, since I started working on book design I'm not doing artwork very often (except cover arts), but there's some old stuff on my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcosdarko

I've been wanting to do some HDM artwork for a loooooong time, but you know, when I get to do it, it gotta be just perfect, so I need a whole lot of time, which I don't have (but when I do, I'll post it here for sure).

[bee]

I've been wanting to do some HDM artwork for a loooooong time, but you know, when I get to do it, it gotta be just perfect, so I need a whole lot of time, which I don't have (but when I do, I'll post it here for sure).

Yes yes! When you do some HDM art, send it in (to fanart@bridgetothestars.net). We have a big fan art collection. It's fantastic.

[particle23]

I also love Douglas Adams

Hi there from another newb!
Sounds like you and I have much in common. I've just started reading "And another Thing..." by Eoin Colfer (if you haven`t read the Artemis Fowl books, people, please do! Another great children's author who crosses over to appeal to adults).
It's book 6 of 3 in the Hitchhikers Guide series and was the book Adams wanted to write but never got round to. I'm only a couple of chapters in so I'll let you know how it pans out

[Jaya]

Well Jaya, I'm still finishing college, and I'm a trainee (or intern, don't know the right term) in a publishing company, where I can do the whole design work of a book - cover art, typographic choices, all kinds of stylistic and (mostly) ergonomic choices that someone made when you read a book and goes "aw, that's a nice book to read"

I want your job May I ask what your favourite His Dark Materials covers are? (We do have a cover art gallery, but it's not yet back up since we refurbished the site, so you can see it here.)

I've just started reading "And another Thing..." by Eoin Colfer (if you haven`t read the Artemis Fowl books, people, please do!

Ooh! I love Artemis Fowl, but I didn't list the most recent book so much. We have a thread about it in our Other Books board, here.

[Dusty Marcos]

Well Jaya, I'm still finishing college, and I'm a trainee (or intern, don't know the right term) in a publishing company, where I can do the whole design work of a book - cover art, typographic choices, all kinds of stylistic and (mostly) ergonomic choices that someone made when you read a book and goes "aw, that's a nice book to read"

I want your job May I ask what your favourite His Dark Materials covers are? (We do have a cover art gallery, but it's not yet back up since we refurbished the site, so you can see it here.)

I've just started reading "And another Thing..." by Eoin Colfer (if you haven`t read the Artemis Fowl books, people, please do!

Ooh! I love Artemis Fowl, but I didn't list the most recent book so much. We have a thread about it in our Other Books board, here.

Jaya, interesting you're asking it, because some days ago I finally got to buy "the" HDM editions I ever wanted. Yeah, I'm talking about the UK's collector's edition hardcover (lantern slides ed.), with those gorgeous engraved covers from John Lawrence. Actually I just bought Northern Lights so far, but I'll complete the trilogy soon (kinda expensive to buy all at once).


Those editions are on my wishlist for a very long time and those are definetely my favorite covers. They're almost conceptual covers, 'cause they're best understood if you know the book's themes. The covers allude to medieval engraved illustrations, which is totally fitting for a book that kinda rewrites the Bible. Also, it reminds me of Paradise Lost's gorgeous engravings by Gustave Doré (which is not medieval but is the same technique). And for a third reason, they go along perfectly with the engravings from Lyra's Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North, and for a series it's very rich and important to have a visual identity like that to link the novels. Also, the tipography on those covers is cool and dynamic and colorful, so it reminds us: it is a children's book.

I also have the trilogy in those cute (although more conventional) covers of the children's version (with Iorek's face in Northern Lights, etc).


I love those covers, but they're paperbacks and even though of good quality, I love HDM so much that I gotta have the best (and my work makes me a little picky for that stuff like paper quality, binding, etc). I'll donate the paperbacks to my university's library.

Trivia fact moment: I've been talking with Dominic Harman, the designer of those covers, and he confessed that the third book's "face" was supposed to be the monkey, but Scholastic thought it would be too agressive and would not please the readers. BS, if you ask me. It would be a lot more appropriate than Stelmaria... he was a true hero in TMS.

[Aletheia Dolorosa]

Hello Marcos! Welcome to the forum! (I agree with Bee. Anyone who's a fan of Pullman and Whedon is pretty awesome in my opinion.)

[Secret Someone]

You sound so awesome that I have the urge to somehow put a spell on you that would make you post things here every day for our viewing pleasure. I want to design books!

Ahem. Welcome to TRoH. Do pop into chat if you fancy it... We're quite friendly and there's a link at the top of the screen.

[Jaya]

Jaya, interesting you're asking it, because some days ago I finally got to buy "the" HDM editions I ever wanted. Yeah, I'm talking about the UK's collector's edition hardcover (lantern slides ed.), with those gorgeous engraved covers from John Lawrence. Actually I just bought Northern Lights so far, but I'll complete the trilogy soon (kinda expensive to buy all at once).

I really love these covers too. I think I prefer simplicity and stylisation over photographic type images. As a personal preference, I have a thing for mostly blank book-covers in terms of graphics (Penguin Celebrations editions ftw...obviously that means cover-design kind of goes out the window if you're standardising...I'm not sure why I like it so much, I wonder if it's because...I, and other people, will be basing book more on its merits/writing/content as opposed to its cover. On the other hand, there are some really beautiful covers out there that would be lost if all books just looked like that.)

I recently had the chance to see these covers in person:



I thought I didn't like them before (I'd only seen them online), but now I've seen them in person and looked more closely at them, I think they're really gorgeous.

The editions I actually own are a paperback NL and TSK, and a hardback TAS.



The dustjacket for the hardback cover is different to the paperback version of it - the front is just taken up with the image of the spyglass and a quotation (I think? I'm not at home, but I'll look later) and the back is taken up by the title.

[Dusty Marcos]

Thanks Aletheia! Nice to see some Whedonites around too!

Secret Someone, that's very kind, thanks! I'm actually quite fond of chating but I couldn't open the chat app. I don't know if it's a compatibility issue with Chrome or something like that. I'll keep trying!

Jaya, you're absolutely right, taste is taste and it's hard to fight. And there's no wrong taste. You know, book design is part art, part science. So even though we, as designers, have a long process of doing a cover that can be read as the book can be read, conceptually, the first impression is always the "beauty" or "ugly" feeling.

You see, it's a battle between hearts and minds, because sometimes what someone finds pretty is not conceptually the best option. Sometimes those opinions doesn't change, but in my case, for example, I'm destined to look at visual compositions with hearts and minds at the same time, so it's not unusual that I look at some artwork and at first find it pretty, but in a second look, the "mental look", I find it terrible, and then it slowly gets ugly in my eyes. The opposite also happens.

Most of the readers stop at the first look because, as you said, the inside is what matters. It is, but I defend that the whole experience, in a deep unconscious level, begins with the cover, the texture of the paper, the smell, etc.

So it's our duty as designers to make the most pretty and most conceptually rich cover. I find the engraving covers absolutely gorgeous (I love this illustration style, as you can see in my flickr), but rationally I also find it the best cover yet concept-wise.

None of those covers that you showed I find conceptually bad, nor ugly, they're all very pretty (your Amber Spyglass edition is gorgeous, I'd like to put my hands on). Most of the covers out there, of any book, are conceptually plain, somehow superficial and "simple to get", and that's not bad at all. It only gets BAD when the covers says something that the novel doesn't. That's bad design.

Those new covers, my first impression was "goddamit, those things are pretty", but in a second look, I think it sells the book as something way softer and more delicate and sweeter than it is. It's an art nouveau-ish approach that makes it look like a Jane Austen novel, or something like that. I don't think that's pretty accurate, in my humble opinion.

But I still can't find them ugly at all.