Dr. Maya Angelou, a.k.a. Miss Calypso

Some of you will think this is a reach, but I’m seeing a definite, and quite amazing (to my eyes) visual resonance between Maya Angelou’s “Miss Calypso“ album cover of 1957 and the original 1969 cover for “I know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” (The album’s “winged” red figure on a black ground with a fire becomes a winged black figure on a red ground and a sun on the book.) Always rising, always on fire. 

By now you’ve read that the phenomenal Dr. Angelou was a dancer and a calypso singer in the 1950s. If you haven’t yet seen the interview with Oprah where she watches a clip of herself in the film, “Calypso Heat Wave,” you should. There are more photos of her performing here. I also recommend NY Times columnist, Charles Blow’s Maya & Me & Maya. It’s a very personal articulation of loss and a powerful tribute.

Roth Wrapped in Bacon?

What would his mother think?

Roth, of course, is recently minted octogenarian Philip Roth, and the wrapping in question is the unmistakable yellow cover of Portnoy’s Complaint designed by Paul Bacon. 

The Rothmania that swept the literary world (and Newark, NJ) on the occasion of the author’s 80th birthday in March, has subsided by now, but it had me looking at early Philip Roth book covers. There’s a lovely Goodbye Columbus cover by Paul Rand, and quite a stylish constructivist cover for the Zuckerman Bound compilation. But nothing beats the 1969 cover of Portnoy’s Complaint for iconic simplicity.

The color yellow, in publishing, has always signified salacious or scandalous content (French yellow books, yellow journalism, etc,). Furthermore, the associative meaning of the color had recently been reinforced in the public mind with the release of the film, I Am Curious (Yellow). Given the amount of sex and nudity consumed today as standard fare on screens of all sizes, it is hard for us now to imagine the shock caused by the Swedish import when it opened here in 1967. The film is now famously remembered as America’s first exposure to explicit sex on the big screen outside of a porn house.

Likewise, Portnoy’s Complaint delivered explicit sexuality (often of a solitary nature) from a literary author, to a mainstream readership. The hilariously vulgar novel debuted to an outraged public that, immediately, put it on the bestseller list.

Paul Bacon had recently hit upon a very commerce-friendly approach to cover design, which became known as the Big Book Look. He could deftly distill a novel’s essence into a single, small conceptual image, which he would combine with bold typography for the book title and author’s name. In an interview with Steven Heller, Bacon explains the pivotal role Portnoy’s Complaint played in the evolution of his design style.

Asked why he avoided his signature conceptual image, Bacon says it was because of the difficulty in portraying the book’s most prominent element: masturbation. But also, “In color, it was just so simple and raw.” He continues: “This was one of the things I started to do for books like Sophie’s Choice – that were strictly lettering covers – which in some ways I suppose was a coward’s way out. But it just seemed appropriate for these enormously complicated books.” Given the epic roots of Sophie’s Choice and Ragtime, Bacon felt that attempting to do anything other than a solution that proclaimed “Important book – read it!” would not work. “I guess that’s kind of a dumb thing to say, but it was at the back of my mind,” he admits.

This is a terrific example of how often "brilliant design" is a matter of instinct. Though Bacon claimed that the lack of “content” was a “coward’s way out,” the cover’s broad expanse of the brightest yellow possible couldn’t have been more perfect. The blankness hints at the anonymity of the old plain brown paper wrapper, and the color assures us of sexual content. The blaring, oversized type, however, announces that this book's subject will not be kept under wraps.

And there’s actually some commonality between the designer and the author. Bacon too is having a big birthday this year—he’ll be 90 in December, both grew up in Newark NJ, and both have an astonishing number of best sellers under their belts. While Roth’s output is admirable for its consistent critical acclaim and commercial success, Bacon’s is staggering. He’s designed over 6,000 book covers. 

You may be familiar with some of these …

Bacon designed some 200 record-album covers as well. In fact, it was through his involvement in the jazz world (read a four-part interview here) that he started designing record covers even before he concentrated on books. 

Women of Amsterdam and Other Books

Women of Amsterdam, 1970

I was looking for information on the book, below, about Japan's Expo '70 when I found my self on Arte Contemporanea, an Italian book site filled with some wonderful covers--art, film, politics, etc.

Structure, Space, Mankind: Expo '70

Living Theatre Paradise, 1969

Dropout, 1971

The journal of a brilliant South African academic

who dropped out, took LSD, and lived

rough on the streets of London.

Daido Moriyama, 2011

Usonien: When Democracy Builds, 1950

How to Play the Environment Game, 1973

Uppercase, 1959

Entropico, 1966

Dali + Film, 2007

... Jacqueline Tutta Nuda!, 1972

Offensive Literature:

Decensorship in Britain 1960-1982

Liberty or Death: 

International Protest, 1968

Dutch Graphic Design, 1993

Atlas of Transformation, 2010

Biennale: Metro 6 Special, 1962

Impariamo a cinematografare, 1947

Image Vol. 7 #1, 1968

The Selling of the President 1968 (1970)

Books on Fire: Fahrenheit 451

This repost is in memory of Ray Bradbury, who died this week at age 91.

Over 125 books appear or are mentioned in Truffaut’s 1966 film adaptation of the Ray Bradbury novel, Fahrenheit 451. Here are a handful in flames. Go here for a complete list.

Oldřich Hlavsa: Book Covers

Básně obrazy, Guillaume Apollinaire, 1965

I’ve been swooning over the typographic mastery of Czech designer, Oldrich Hlavsa (1909-1995). Though he's best known for his books about typography and book design, here are some of the books he designed.

  

The covers here are all from the 1960s. I’m thinking typographic jazz improvisation—you know one of those solos that go so far out there, you can’t imagine it ever coming back. And when it finally does, there’s way more than polite applause. As far out as Hlavsa might go with fragmenting, duplicating, slicing, or spacing, each does so with enough style and surprise that I’m left wondering how, exactly, he managed to pull it off.

Read more about him here (scroll down for English).

Typografická písma latinková, 1960

Moderní Francouzská Fotografie, J.A.Kaim, 1966

Clockwise from top left: Expresionismus, Ludvík Kundera, 1969; Inspiromat, Bratislav Hartl, 1967; Slovo o Pluku Majakovského, V. Majakovskij, 1961; Začarovaná Drožka, Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, 1963

150,000.000, Vladimír Majakovskij

Veřejná Růže, Paul Eluard, 1964


Snář, Radovan Krátký, 1968

Prvotiny, Vydalo Státní, 1961

Pan Meister, Walter Jens, 1967

(Top: Dust jacket)

Posměšky a jízlivosti, Markus Valerius Martialis, 1965

Emil Filla, Čestmír Berka, 1964

Oldrich Mikulasek, Svlekani Hadu, 1963

These images are from Czech antiquarian book sites, of which there are many. You can try here, here, and here.