What I need

Today in uni,  someone had very kindly made a poster giving away "more time". Here is my little bit of more time to share with you all. I'm not sure how much more time it offers, or when the extra time takes place, but right now I feel like I need it. 

Book cover design: What did I do last night? by Tom Sykes.

This is a book that I picked up about a year ago in a charity shop. On the shelves there amongst the Catherine Cookson's and the Mills&Boon, this jumped out at me. It promised an dark, dangerous and exciting read about drinking, getting into trouble and eventually sobering up. Expressive text on the cover lured me in, and I could almost feel the hangover pounding between the intense colours. 

Oh, I'm talking about the cover on the right, published by Random House in 2007. It's a really great read; funny, sad, troubled, but told without too much self pity. I've recommended it to a few people, and generally it has gone down well. I really like the cover, it has a clear spot varnish over the bottle which you can't see on screen, but slightly off. The whole thing to me just captures the mood of the book and I love the expressive, haphazard, inky writing. Recently I entered the Penguin book design competition to design the cover of On the Road, and the type on this book definitely inspired me with my design. So, pretty high praise for this version.

Now, the cover on the left is also Random House but the 2008 version. I found this yesterday while browsing in HMV. This is a very different environment to the charity shop shelf as it has to compete with CD covers and big glossy books full of photos. But I nearly walked past it without noticing. I get that the swirling type on the cover is meant to convey some kind of drunkenness, but for me it's a bit too calculated and dare I say.....chick lit? The 'nice' colours, the extra leg on the 'K' of Sykes, those swirling tendrils; to me this is saying that this book is about lashings of lambrini and a romantic disaster that turns out alright in the end. Centering all the text loses the tension of the asymmetric first cover, and it becomes a lot more predictable to the eye. A couple of swirls isn't going to rescue a dull design. It's easier to design something like the 2008 cover and less risky, and perhaps the publishers felt that the book needed to look more friendly in order to sell. Whatever; I'll be keeping my rough around the edges, rolling, roaring and drunken original in favour of  the simpering, hiccuping and tipsy new version.

*****Latest news: According to my poll, I am correct in analysis of these covers. Thankyou to the one person who voted!

As part of my course, we get talks and seminars we can attend hosted by tutors or visiting designers. Last week I was able to attend a session run by Rolf Pilarsky that focussed on ecological issues. Greenwashing was a major theme of our discussions, and we talked about companies who may have very un-environmental working practices but who get artists and designers to gloss over this and present them in a much better way. 

Rolf is from Berlin, and commutes by plane to Bath every week. You could argue that he is in a pretty bad position to be arguing for ecological awareness because plane journeys are known as being bad for carbon emissions. However, I am glad that he does commute as it gave me the chance to see some work he has been doing on the theme of environment, and he also showed us work by other artists, mainly photographers, who did work that was inspired by activism and social conscience.

After he showed us his work, one of the major points that came across was that it is still important to draw awareness to these issues, even if doing so consumes lots of energy and resources itself. Otherwise we might as well just do nothing and sit with the lights off. Even making a small change is important because that is how the big changes come about. Although there were a lot of well argued and conflicting points of view in the discussion, I still believe that with change you have to start somewhere and not just opt out. 

Anyway, here is some of the photography that he showed us, and if you follow the link to Rolf's website, there is more on his video there.

www.edwardburtynsky.com

Shipbreaking. Parts of old tankers are left to be broken up in poorer countries, sometimes containing toxic substances.

Robert Polidari. Photographs from Chernobyl and the town of Pripyat. These photos have a very eerie abandonment to them, more so when you know the context.

George Osodi. The fire in the background burned for 45 days. This photo was taken in Nigeria. There is more on this story here.

Alan Sekula. Shipwreck.

Bryn and Nessa do "Islands in the Stream"

I could watch this clip all day long. The choice of song is inspired, and the accents with those rolling rrrrrr's just get me. As a Cardiff girl myself, it reminds me of a few karaoke nights out on the town that have been very similar to this! I appreciate seeing good Welsh comedy going on, and this series is just getting better and better. If you havn't seen it yet, head over to the bbc/iplayer and find out what's occuring, alright?!