John Gall is a book cover designer and the director for Vintage and Anchor Books. His use of typography makes his designs unique and distinctive among other books on the shelves. When designing his book covers Gall tries to surprise himself as well as his audience. John Gall is important because he is the director of a company which publishes around 200 books a year.
Series: A series is a sequence of books that share common characteristics and are identified as a group.
Sequence: Is an ordered list of objects or events. Books in a series are written to be read in a certain order.
Sign: There are three kinds of signs: an icon, index, and symbol. An icon sign is one that resembles something. An index sign is one that links the sign and the object together. A symbol is one that represents something else without any logical meaning.
Examples: no-smoking sign, traffic sign, flag representing countries.
Symbol: A graphic element that communicates the ideas and concepts that it represents rather than denoting what it actually is. Example - 3 arrows in the form of a triangle symbolizing recycling
Index: An index is a sensory feature (part A) that correlates or implies another part/what is to come (Part B).
Example: A train whistle is an index of a train coming.
Book Covers:
These books use indexes in a variety of ways. The book titled Speak has a face on the front without a mouth, this is an index showing perhaps the book is more about being silent or not being able to speak. The book Where the Sidewalk Ends is in black and white and drawing in a cartoon style. There are kids looking over the edge of a sidewalk. This is an index that the book will be light-hearted and perhaps childlike. The book entitled Burned actually has the letters burned into the book showing the book will be possibly be about hurt or fire.
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