Augusten Burroughs - "branding" discussion
| June 30, 2008

Here are some titles written by Augusten Burroughs. I love this! It seems that the covers for Burroughs tie together by having a simple and powerful metaphor. From time to time we hear that the authors need to be branded by having the same typeface and arrangement of elements. However, if we look at Burroughs... he has a different face and arrangement on every composition. The content of every book is different (hopefully), so why would we need to showcase them the same? Do we want people to think he is the exact same in every book (isn't the point of branding to maintain consistency)? Perhaps...

Then we have authors like Grisham, who, probably benefit by having his name nearly the same all the time (that way his consumers can instantly find his book). Or maybe he just needs his name large... Or maybe his books are all similar enough that we don't need to get a sense of variety.

Sedaris has a great name treatment, it is same at all times, but I feel it conveys the author better than HUGE type. It is lowercase and spaced... very quite, smooth, and contemplative.

I have no clue where this discussion leads... Maybe I dislike when author's are branded in an uninteresting way that says nothing. But perhaps I am fine with an author being branded if it looks good. Perhaps I am just a bias designer who just wants to do what I want to do.

Tags:  auguesten burroughs, book cover, name branding

Topic: Book Cover Design