Book Covers

In The Jacket Designer's Challenge:To Capture a Book by it's Cover Peter Mendelsund is interviewed and he reveals some of his designing process. According to Mendelsund a book jacket has two primary jobs: to represent a text, and to sell it. I would not appreciate not getting as good of a book cover because I wasn't dead, would you? Mendelsund doesn't feel the pressure of having to impress the author with the cover so he doesn't hold anything back when he creates covers for books whose authors have passed on.

The process. The book must be read before a cover can be done, then Mendelsund looks over the notes that he put on the manuscript. He sometimes makes a sketch or collage, he may work on a computer design. After the cover is made he puts it on the book and tries to forget about it. I have to do this with my artwork and essays that I have been working on for a long time so that when I revisit it my mind is fresh and can see the errors clearer.

Mendelsund has written two books himself, I am interested in reading Cover. It is a collection of hundreds of his book covers and commentaries on his technique. The other, What We See When We Read is about how words gibe rise to images in our minds.

Which of the books would you like to read more, and why? Have you read any books that had the cover designed by Mendelsund? What do you think of his work?

"The Jacket Designer's Challenge: To Capture A Book By Its Cover." NPR. NPR. Web. 28 Oct. 2014. .

Mistaken Art

Minor White, Who Lived A Life In Photographs, Saw Images As Mirrors makes a statement about one mans way of using his love and work to express everything about himself. Minor White used his photography as a mirror, to express himself in a way that he could not with words. He also used it to express his love. Minor White was a closeted homosexual throughout his entire career because if someone had found out he could have lost his source of livelihood. When questioning whether or not he could be a good photographer he was told by Alfred Stieglitz that if he had ever been in love that he could be a photographer.

Photography is not thought of as art when pertaining to selfies or a quick picture of your new sweater that you are going to post on instagram. Photography can be an art. I love taking photographs of nature and beautiful things, but wouldn't call my most recent selfie art, or even photography. Photography would be my ideal profession.

What do you think of when you hear the term fine arts? Probably not Photography, at first. Do you think that ever being in love has anything to do with photography?

I would say that alot of things could be counted as a fine art if you had a good argument, in my opinion, language is a fine art. Being able to speak gracefully in whatever language you can, that is a talent, and an art. Love absolutely has everything to do with photography, but so does hate, and fear. It's all about emotion, emotion that you can capture and convey with a camera. You must not necessarily fall in love to be a good photographer, just to be able to capture something in a loving light. 

This relates to my HWG class because Minor White was different and he used his differences to do something different. He changed the community around him with his art. Now he is affecting people who hear about him, even though he is dead. It also relates to my ELA  class in the way that Minor White told stories of himself through the photography. Literature does the same thing with words. People have written biographies about Minor White, I think that they would be very interesting to read

Stamberg, Susan. "Minor White, Who Lived A Life In Photographs, Saw Images As Mirrors." NPR. NPR.

Web. 18 Oct. 2014. .