Book Covers & Memory : Part 1
Recently, as an extension of my research into the application of Memory Studies to selected works of literature, I began paying close attention to book covers. If eyes are considered to be the windows to the soul, then, a book cover is what guides the reader to the very essence of the book. Even at a subconscious level, we tend to judge books by their covers. So, what are the processes at work behind our perception and judgment of book covers? Upon investigating into it, two key facets emerged: memory and experience.
To begin with, let us look at how memories influence our perception of book covers. For instance, consider the entire collection of the Penguin Classics Library. Their collection is characterized by an all-black jacket, comprised of an illustration on the top-half of the front page, a white band running horizontally across both sides of the cover, bearing “Penguin Classics” in black font. Below the band appears the writer’s name in a pleasant shade of orange, entirely in capital letters, followed by the book’s title in white font, completely italicised. Over the years, their adherence to this specific pattern of fonts and the black-white-orange colour themes has registered itself into the deepest recesses of their readers’ memories. As a result, readers who hold the collection in high regard will eventually come to associate their memory of the specific design with feelings, like- the pleasure they felt while reading, or, for that matter, even with the sense of trust that they associate with the collection.
Further, we find that book covers draw upon our memories using various other techniques as well, such as: colours, font (size, type and arrangement) and pictures. Colour psychologists have established that specific colours can evoke specific emotions and feelings. Consequentially, blue makes us feel calm and relaxed, green, the colour of life, promotes feelings of restfulness and cheer, etc..
Book covers make a strategic use of colours in order to construct a narrative about themselves. Books that deal with light-hearted and breezy themes, like comedies and romance, often use pleasant shades of light colours like yellow, blue, pink, orange and green, in order to communicate the message that their books are comfort reads. On the flip side, we find a heavy use of the shades of black, grey, pale blue and deep red on the covers of certain novels, especially the ones dealing with the themes of murder, death, psychological thrillers, to name a few. Hence, the readers can clearly understand what the book is selling to them.
Like colours, fonts are also strategically utilized in book covers. This point will be understood better in the context of certain specific examples. First, consider the following book cover of Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth :
The meticulous arrangement of the title of the book and the author’s name at the same level, using the same font and the same colour (white), juxtapositioned over a deep-red background, together, construct an image: the image of actual white teeth, with the red background being reminiscent of the gums. Here, it is imperative to note that, in order to remind us of a specific image, not only has the font type and size been strategically decided, even colours have been played with.
Yet another example of intelligent font usage manifests itself in the book cover of Rebecca Schiff’s The Bed Moved, as is evident from the image below:
The haphazard, tumbling and crazy arrangement of the letters itself is highly suggestive of movement, an action that is also indicated at by the title. Such aesthetic moves influence our memories and minds in a way that is intended by the book’s author and publisher, thereby determining how we perceive the book, and how we remember it in the years to come.
The titles of both the books, White Teeth and The Bed Moved do not have much to do with the actual content of the books. Thus, the book covers cited as examples address the title only. There are many other book covers which address the entire book’s content, through other complex techniques which involve symbolism and imagery, to name a few. This, and multiple other relations between book covers and their impact on memory, will be discussed in Part-2.
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