Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart
For this new cover, Rodrigo Corral picks up the typeface that he has already used for another Shteyngart book: the energetic brush caps from House Industries’ Sign Painter font kit. Super Sad True Love Story and its cover design is also cited at the side, suggesting a directory-like thumb index. From this color palette, blue is used for the large tear drop which fills the cover and holds the type.
Although the letterforms are evocative of handlettering, they all stem from fonts and are digitally arranged. In addition to House Brush, there is also a similar, bolder style for the title (unidentified; Avalanche comes close), and Signalist for the author’s name.
Our tools allow us to knead letterforms and bend them into shape, and the result here is not terrible (if you don’t look too closely at Signalist’s caps and the ‘g’). Still, this concept could have been more convincingly realized by a lettering artist, who can create a tailored solution, unencumbered by the constraints of fonts. Type generally works best when used in the way it was designed for: in straight lines, undistorted.
via Casual Optimist’s Book Covers of Note November 2014
