Type Takes Over
There’s no arguing that typography holds great authority in book design. Evidently, bold typography has always suited emphatic and definite titles, becoming a more widely used style for nonfiction. However, beyond this familiarity, I was interested to look into this approach for contemporary fiction that celebrates type in meticulous form & compositions; the versatility allowed by the various forms it takes.
From literary fiction to fantasy, sci-fi romance to suspense, and humour to psychological fiction, the power of type to express meaning is marvellous. To tell the story of these imaginary people, in their fictional world, with the lack of a visual cue, it is fascinating to see the growing inclination towards this expressive display type.
Typography is an ever-evolving field. In an article with It’s Nice That, Eliot Grunewald concludes “… type will remain a rich field – one that keeps reinventing itself”. With the strength of endless possibilities, it is only right to praise this illustrative, experimental, simple, innocent, and audacious play on book covers.
“I love type-led work for its economy, the clarity of message, the lack of excess information on the page. Type that gives the reader the tone or the feeling of the book simply in the way it is executed is the perfect example of less being more.
My approach for the cover for Antkind was to fill the cover with simple blocky letters and then push those letterforms as far as I could, making them gloopy and merging into one another. The novel is really odd and unique and I wanted to make some type that would reflect that.” - JACK SMYTH“I’d always admired the emotional & aesthetic impact of all-type design of The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, where JOHN is emphasized in a contrasting colour. When I realised I could spell LOVE & ANGER with the letters on the cover, it felt like a beautiful visual distillation of this novel. When imagery feels limiting or insufficient in a design, all-type can be a strong way to go.” - KELLY HILL
