To get inside a book, you have to travel past its cover. A cover is the beginning, the first point of contact. In a library or bookstore, covers call out to readers, asking for a closer look. On a bedside table, they have already gotten that closer look; they are iconic reminders of the stories their readers have yet to finish. Book covers are a call to begin, or to begin again. 

But for a designer, the book cover signifies the end. Covers are often the last element of a book to be designed, particularly when the inside of the book is highly visual—cookbooks, catalogs, coffee table books, and the like. For novels and some works of non-fiction, interiors and covers are designed independently of each other—by different designers who may have no contact during the process. But for visual books whose covers are meant to introduce or summarize the visual material on the inside, the cover is more integrated, and represents the final step. 

I encourage students to design books in that latter category from the inside out. Figure out the heart of the visual story first, and then extend and re-envision it to front and back matter, and finally, bring it to the cover. Select the most important moments of the inside of the book and consider how those moments are conveyed graphically. Which should be brought to the cover and in what form? And always keep the pacing in mind; how will the sequence of the cover, endpapers title page, and table of contents introduce the narrative, and simultaneously provide adequate contrast and continuity? These are difficult questions to address in the process of learning to design a large, synthetic project. It is easy to get mired in the analytical logic of the elements of a book. In some cases, book covers pay the price for this. They become a lifeless combination of elements from the inside, the “logical” outcome of what has already been committed to. 

It is that time of year. For 17 seniors making long, informational books, the end is in sight. It is time to design the cover, to reach for a new graphic form that somehow works with what has already been designed. The following book covers, detached from their interiors, are meant to serve as inspiration in that process.

The first two covers are by Jason Ramirez. In the first, a biography of Gabriel García Márquez’s early years, a photographic image of lush, saturated fruit serves as the primary metaphor and dominant visual element. The background is a painterly combination of soft hues. Red seeds are scattered across the composition, to say nothing of the two insects. This image is brimming with life and is designed so that the type, though secondary in importance, integrates seamlessly into the composition. The balance between the medium weight sans serif and the lighter weight of the decorative italic adds to the visual interest.

“Supermarket” also brings a sense of narrative to the cover, communicated by simple details. Here the type and image are in more direct dialogue. We make a visceral connection between the cracked egg and the the serrated edges of the circles that hold the letter forms.

Type and image appear in stark contrast to ground in Barbara DeWilde’s cover for “Milk,” which is all about making us feel that whiteness. The shape of the glass bottle and the swash italic are integrated so that neither is right without the other. The position and scale of the type are an important component of this. Notice that Anne Mendelson’s name appears on a subtle angle—to reinforce the edge of the table, but none of the other type does. Because of the swash element above her name, we hardly notice this, and yet it is important for the overall impression.

Type and image interact even more directly in Susan Mitchell’s cover for ”Sea of Poppies.” The solid shape of the letter forms provides an anchor for the transparency of the flowers. The stripes top and bottom are a critical detail. They make the palette more unexpected and ground it with value contrast. The gold is then picked up on the surfaces where the poppies and letterform intersect. The cover feels fresh, and yet integrated.

And finally, a cover from Rex Bonomelli which uses cut paper. The contrast between the large type which sits flatly on the ground and the smaller strips of paper which sit on top gives the cover dimension. The repeating but subtle use of the square (the stroke of the q, the counterforms of the capital E on the right, and the crop of the E on the left) adds conceptual and visual interest. The choice to move the E from “square” to align with the E from “one” grounds the cover and sets the largest negative space (also square in shape).

 

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There is an inevitable quality about all of these covers. They look right. They are simple and direct; each has a voice. But the process of achieving that clarity of concept and form is much less inevitable. And that is the hard work that comes with spring of the senior year.

 

 

 

This is a screen shot of an interactive display that I designed for a transdisciplinary experiment in public health last year. This experiment was developed by a research team, led by epidemiologist Tina Dur of the California Cancer Prevention Center, Matt Kreuter, professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, and myself. It is part of a larger grant that we received from the National Cancer Institute. 

 This interface shows colorectal cancer rates in the state of California. The rates are displayed as a matrix of circles; each circle correponds to one data point, which is sized according to rate and color-coded by ethnicity. Rolling the mouse over (or touching) a given circle calls up the numeric rate, region name, and regional population. On a computer, it is possible to skim across the surface of the circles and scan the rates quickly. 

 This display does not show trends in cancer rates. It shows an average of recent rates. It does not break down the crude rate and the age-adjusted rate. It does not show confidence intervals. 

 The interface below does all of those things. It is a standard display of cancer surveillance data, designed for researchers to use; it is meant to provide choices and a volume of information.

 

Our experiment sought to create an interface with similar data that would be more usable for the general public, and then to test whether it was more effective for users. 

 Our first task in the development process was to limit the scope of the data so that the users could focus primarily on rate differences. Then, in the visual design, I developed the matrix approach to show both local comparisons (between individual circles) and larger patterns, all on a single screen. The color coding differentiates four ethnic categories. 

There is a kind of hierarchy between the quick view of the matrix and the more detailed information providing by rolling over individual circles. My hope is that the user receives one level of broad information by looking at the static screen, and then receives deeper information by rolling over/touching. 

Without question, there is much that could be done to improve the public’s experience of this redesign. One possibility is a “relevance” or “context” layer of information. What is the significance of these data? How should we interpret them? Why should we care? This graphic doesn’t make the case for relevance. It is also possible that more data could be integrated without compromising the simplicity of the design. Would the option to view time-based or trend data make it a more useful tool? 

But with the time allotted, this is what we developed and tested. Over 200 members California voters were paid to participate in the online experiment, in which responses to the display above were compared to reactions to our redesign. Participants responded to a long series of survey questions. These questions were designed to address issues such as:

How engaged are you is this display? 

What do you learn from this display? 

The results are an interesting mix. While overall engagement levels with the redesigned interface are higher than with the original interface, they are not significantly higher. It appears that the general public is not overwhelmingly interested in colon cancer incidence rates. Not a big surprise; interest in cancer rates is likely driven by personal relevance. If we had been able to interview family members of colorectal cancer patients, these results would likely have been different. 

The more compelling outcomes came from our teaching tool questions. Participants were asked a set of factual questions about who gets colorectal cancer in California. For those questions, the redesign produced more correct answers—by huge margins. For example, when asked which racial group gets colorectal cancer the least, participants who viewed the redesign answered correctly in 75% of cases; participants who viewed the California Cancer Registry rates answered correctly in 18% of cases. Other questions yielded similar results. 

This suggests that visual design can have a profound impact on learning. It is an exciting result for a public health project; it is easy to envision testing this result further, deepening our audience understanding, designing tools that promote more accurate understanding of health facts and figures. Indeed there are increasing number of effective resources being developed in this general arena.

Thinking more broadly: One way to generalize this result is to ask how visual design can help screen-based learning tools perform more effectively in a wide variety of fields and contexts. Comparing learning achieved between old and new seems to be one good way to do this. 

But this is complex terrain. The less factual and more intepretive the learning problem, the harder the assessment and design questions. But also the more exciting. 

In my role as a faculty member in Communication Design, defining projects for students to do is the bread and butter of my daily life. And I have regular experiences with that gap between how a project sounds on paper and how it appears on the day of the critique. In some ways, my work is all about that gap. It always sounds great on paper, of course. But the reality is that it is never as good as that. It can’t be. Some students enjoy it, others don’t. Some make good work, others show things that are flat, or even lame. Some seem to learn a lot. But not everyone. 

But while this can feel like a randomized, even torturous, game for a faculty member, it really is not. Student work thoughout a project should tell us a great deal about what they are learning and what they are not. We learn to see patterns which provide important clues. And we can make changes—either to the projects we assign or to the way that we structure them, or both. I have been involved in this process of reflection about teaching for some time now. A lesson from this semester about structuring the gap between promise and delivery is as follows: 

I have taught juniors–new designers in our major–for many years now. In my final Word and Image course projects, I ask them to design a book using the text “Untitled” by artist Matt Mullican. The text is essentially a list of the daily activities of a woman from birth to death. It is written in a lyrical style that provides ample opportunity for visual storytelling and expressive typography. By the end of the semester, the juniors have learned some typographic conventions; in fact, many of them have fought the confinement of these conventions. They may even be under the impression that this new field they have chosen to pursue is boring; do designers really just sit around and type in 9 pt Univers all day? You can almost see it in their eyes. 

For this project, they are given the freedom to create in whatever way they wish. The content of the text is all over the place. They can pick up on anything—a theme, a set of verbs or nouns, a style of sentence construction. They can paint or collage with bandaids or make wire sculptures and photograph them or photocopy old signage or whatever they want. What matters is that they have an idea that brings something to the text, and that they find some way to show it. Ultimately, those typographic principles come into play to shape their books for greater sequential power, but really, the project is a free-for-all. They have longed for freedom all semester; now they have it. What a gift I have given them! 

Wrong. I am surprised every year that it doesn’t go all that well. Sure, it does fine. It has rarely produced home runs, but there are some decent looking books. Fairly tame conceptually and visually, but competent. Students seem to learn some things. They are somewhat enthusiastic. But then again, maybe not all that enthusiastic. I feel about the same. 

They always start slowly. They read the poem. Maybe they jot down some impressions. Or they set one line of type in Helvetica and then Garamond and then something much hipper and newer in their minds like Neutraface. Which one should I use? they ask. Is this what you’re looking for? Well, I’m not really looking for anything specific, I reply. What are your ideas? What about thumbnails? Ah yes, thumbnails. Are there books like this they can look at that are designed in this more expressive way? they ask. Well, not exactly. This is more about your invention. What are your ideas? They reread the poem again. 

Early stages of a project like this are exhausting. But the process of self-discovery is important, in my mind, so I have tried to nurse it along. Eventually, something emerges. 

But this was my year for a radical move. On day one of the project I handed out a checklist. Yes, I replaced the open-ended methodological discussions that characterize the first two weeks of this assignment with a set of commands. Scary.

I always pick up small books. They are so easy to hold, generally lightweight, and can be thrown into a bag. They feel optimistic to me, as if I might actually read them. I should clarify that I am not a fan of the novella. I have always preferred my fiction in longer chunks—more time to immerse in characters and stories. But small books of non-fiction, even small books about fiction, pull at me. 

I can think of three such books that I particularly admire. Each has its own version of smallness. These are “The Triumph of Narrative” by Robert Fulford, “How Fiction Works” by James Wood, and “The Art of Teaching” by Jay Parini (English professor and poet). 









“The Triumph of Narrative” is a thin book of about 150 pages. While its page size is not particularly small, the type is set with significant leading, so there are not too many words on each page. 

“How Fiction Works” has more pages, but they are smaller. The type is set larger—less space between lines, but larger margins. How Fiction Works is broken into 123 short vignettes, further segmenting the text. 

“The Art of Teaching” has the largest page size, though again, just over 150 pages. My copy of this book is hard-cover. It makes a somewhat louder thump when thrown onto a table. The type is small, but heavily leaded and the margins are significant. 











While their designs capture different forms of smallness, each of these books is filled with big, accessible ideas. In some ways, their messages are louder because they have been captured in so few words. And the tone of each book is personal in its own way, matching the intimacy of the small form. 
In his first of five chapters, Robert Fulford explains why humans gravitate toward narrative:

To (anthropologist Clifford) Geertz, a human being is an organism that ‘cannot live in a world that it is unable to understand.’ But if it is understanding we yearn for, why isn’t analysis good enough? Why can’t we simply study our experience rather than recount it chronologically?  The answer is that narrative, as opposed to analysis, has the power to mimic the unfolding of reality. Narrative is selective and may be untrue, but it can produce the feeling of events occurring in time; it seems to be rooted in reality. This is also the reason for the triumph of narrative, its penetration and in some ways its dominance of our collective imagination…

Fulford goes on to mix discussion of narrative’s roots in gossip and the news with a broad set of examples from literature and literary theory. 
James Wood talks about the precise role of language in crafting fiction. He moves from narration, through detail and character, ending with truth and realism. He covers so much ground in so few pages. He begins:

The house of fiction has many windows, but only two or three doors. I can tell a story in the third person or in the first person, and perhaps in the second person singular, or in the first person plural, though successful examples of these latter two are rare indeed. And that is it.

Jay Parini writes (in the first person) about his life as a teacher of poetry and literature. He frames his discussion with a short chapter on beginnings and a short chapter on endings. The three interior chapters are devoted to his life as a student, the teaching life, as he calls it, and finally, his advice for teachers early in their careers. Parini’s draw, I think, is that he writes completely from his own experience:

Years later, I still find beginnings attractive for what they offer in the way of opportunities for change, although the first days and weeks of school are not without their small terrors and discomforts. Indeed, as I was writing this, I got an email from a colleague saying that she hadn’t taught in a while, and that she was actually frightened of her students. I know the feeling: that dread, as one approaches class for the first time in September. It can be difficult to begin again, to invent everything from the ground up, to learn the names of the students, their foibles, their likes and dislikes. There is so much to absorb in such a short time.

As well written and insightful as I believe these books to be, my prized experience with each one stems partially from its smallness. If we are indeed in the age of information overload, which everything in my daily experience tells me that we are, then these books provide focus. They stem from a point of view and they are tight. It is clear that print will give way to digital delivery systems in some areas; I hope the arena of the small book of non-fiction is not one of them. 

School is back in session. My daughter begins kindergarten, which is all about learning to read. She will stop looking at letters as shapes as she thinks about how they group together and what they mean.

My new group of junior undergraduates will study letters as forms this semester, having learned to read long ago. For them, it’s almost about learning to stop reading, or at least not letting their desire to read block what their eyes can see. The letters they will study are forms on a two-dimensional surface as much as they are symbols that have meaning when combined into words and sentences. How can they find, make, manipulate, and evaluate these forms? The “alphabet” above was clipped from sources as varied as Jenson’s original type, Maira Kalman’s lyrical handwritten forms for children, Luke Williams’ original calligraphic and typographic designs featured in Communication Arts, and Landor’s famous work for Northwest Airlines from an era ago. The forms are drawn, typeset, photographed, letter pressed; in each case, media plays an important role in the resulting form—its shape, edges, textures, palette, associative qualities. The letters have been cropped out of their original contexts, making reading them as parts of words nearly impossible, hence forcing the eye to look. But even in their original formats, they can still be viewed for their visual properties. Looking at letters is a foundation for learning typography and an excellent way to spend a semester. 

Designers, and particularly students of design, are asked to build visual collections with some regularity. Breadth and quality are key, at least in the initial rounds of an exploration. Designers need to see a lot from a range of sources, generate a great many ideas—some good, some bad, some strange—to move the design process forward. That process might be summarized as a big start with lots of editing. 

School is in session. Time to get started on that first collection of stuff. Get busy. 

A  Burson Marstellar Design Department, Ace Chain Link Fence, 1982
B  Maira Kalman, What Pete Ate, 
C  Ekta Mody, Communication Arts, 2010
D  Tom Lichtenheld, Duck Rabbit, 2009
E  Eskind Waddell, New Year’s Eve, 1982
F  TM Graphic Design, Cal State Fullerton, 2010
G  Margaret Thompson, 2011
H  Pentagram, Hilton Typographers, 1990
I  Miroslav Sasek, This is Paris, 1959
J  Jude Landry, Jessica Hische poster, 2010
K  Jessica Hische, birth announcement for Annie Hendrix, 2009
L  Rebeca Méndez, The Experimental Exercise of Freedom, 2000
M  McCoy and McCoy, 1982
N  Landor, Northwest Airlines logo, 1990
O  Cahan and Associates, Maxygen Annual Report, 2000
P  Cap Pannell & Co., 1982
Q  Nicolas Jenson’s Roman type, c. 1470
R  Vogue’s First Reader, 1942
S  Luke Williams, featured in Communication Arts, 2011
T  Fred Woodward, Hot Magazine, 1990
U  Luke Williams, featured in Communication Arts, 2011
V  Gino Boccaasile, Cervo poster, 1935
W  Ork Design, map of Chicago
X  Virgil Scott, featured in Communication Arts, 2011 
Y  Heather Corcoran, undergraduate thesis, 1992
Z  John Downer, Fairplex italic (lig one), 2011 

The endpapers in the Poppleton children’s book series written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Mark Teague are all the same image. It is a map of Poppleton’s neighborhood. Seen from above, Poppleton’s small town includes sites from his stories—the library, the bakery, the bus.

Children often love maps; this map provides a broad, visually informational context for a set of narratives. Readers can trace where Poppleton lives, how he walks to the library, where he catches the bus. The map functions as a kind of synthetic visual system, providing information that each story alone can not. This is the macro view. Its loosely geographic purpose is similiar to that of other maps in children’s books, which have appeared throughout history. Think of the Hundred Acre Woods in Winnie the Pooh. 

Like Christopher Robin, Poppleton also appears on his map, by the way. 

“Map” is one of those words whose meaning has become muddier in recent years. (“Design” and “research” and “strategy” have lost sharpness as well, I think.) Perhaps it is our twenty-first century love of therapy and information that has caused us to use “map” more as a verb than a noun, and to map much more than geographic space.

Sara Fanelli’s “My Map Book” provides a set of examples for children. Her maps use a saturated palette and a scratchy, painterly drawing style to convey personal information in two-dimensional space. Subjects include Fanelli’s (childhood?) day, her heart, her dog, and her stomach. 

Fanelli’s maps are different from Mark Teague’s Poppleton map in two important ways. First, as discussed above, they use geography as a metaphor for the systems of a child’s daily life. Fanelli has “mapped” these systems, not geographic space (with a few exceptions). Second, her maps are highly editorialized. Their attitude is personal, hyperbolized. We are not looking at a child’s hourly schedule, but instead see Fanelli’s interpretation of a child’s sense of time. Brushing teeth in the morning looms large, as does taking the bus to school, while eating dinner is a fairly minor affair. Decisions about scale, color, pattern, icon feel arbitrary, interpretive. 

I believe that children interact with this map in a different way than they do Poppleton’s. They decode the meaning behind the toothbrush and the stars, explore the order of events, the size and color of each of the blocks. They ask different questions. Why do things look like they do? Why are they placed where they are? Their goal is more about interpreting, and less about facts. The maps do not correspond to a text; they are their own set of stories. 

Melanie Watts’ Scaredy Squirrel books use maps, charts, diagrams, and a generally analytic approach. Each book posits a new challenge for Scaredy Squirrel, which he solves by making checklists and a map to plan his actions. These books contain a third category of maps, a merger of geographic information and plot. Children are able to see Scaredy Squirrel’s geography and track his thinking simultaneously by interacting with his map. Scaredy Squirrel maps use icons and flat pictures to represent geographic space. But while the maps provide a geographic framework, there is little real detail about place, much less than what we learn of Poppleton’s neighborhood. In some ways, Watts’ maps are containers for writing—about Scaredy’s thoughts. There is more label text than running text in her books. Do children understand or appreciate language more if it is positioned in a meaningful visual structure? My impression is yes. 

All three of these contemporary books (or series of books) engage the world of drawn information design. But the content, strategies for interaction with text, and effects are quite different. Today we see more examples of children’s books that incorporate information design. They describe geographic space, present metaphors, invite personal dialogue, and describe character and plot. In this landscape, new questions emerge. In my mind, these questions fall into the categories of content, form (including visual structure), learning impact, and the connection to children’s own map projects.

These companion posters were designed to promote the 2011 Communication Design senior seminar presentations at Washington University. The first poster is meant to illustrate the broad learning process that ultimately leads to the presentations, the second to focus on the presentation event.

James Wood’s wandering path through literature, as described in his 2008 book “How Fiction Works,” visualized for print (dimensions 30 inches by 10 inches). All works in Wood’s bibliography are presented in date order. Two details are followed by the complete graphic.