Reading 2 Response

Mayumi Roller Colby Caldwell ART333 PhotoBook 28 January 2013

Reading 2 Response

I am currently taking ART233: Decoding the World of Movie Poster Design, taught by the visiting Artist in Residence, Camilo Sanin. When Camilo described the course in his introductory remarks during the first day of class, I remember wondering if the production of movie posters was becoming obsolete. Camilo was saying how the design of a movie poster is very important because that’s what draws the viewer in to see the film. However, I started thinking about when actually was the last time I really saw a movie poster was. I rarely go to the movies, so I don’t see them there, and I’m pretty sure that movie posters aren’t really displayed anywhere else. If they are, I haven’t really noticed them. But I feel like nowadays, with the advent of the movie preview, which can be viewed on TV, or on YouTube, nobody really looks at movie posters anymore.

I thought back to this after reading Craig Mod’s Hack The Cover.

This reading talked about how, with the digitalization of books, covers are hardly something that someone sees. There are fewer and fewer numbers of bookstores. When buying books online, the covers are only pictured as small thumbnails that you just quickly scan over. And when opening a book on a Kindle, or other book reading technological device, it just skips right to the first page of the first chapter.

Right now I’m thinking about that old saying: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” A saying that I always admitted to myself to be wise advice, but secretly, when my dad took me to Dockside Bookshop in Havensight Mall on St. Thomas, I would judge the shit out of all of the books through which my young, hungry eyes perused.

Covers were what drew me into the book. Even though I am sure that there are many great books that have ugly covers, I had recognized from an early age that the cover of a book was an important thing. Obviously the quality of the book is important too, but the cover really gave me something to imagine and ponder over, before, during, and after reading a book.

But now, what are we judging books on since we are experiencing them without their covers? How do we decipher what we want to read or don’t? Is it just through hearsay, from seeing a friend tweet, blog, or Facebook about it? It almost seems like we are being cheated half of the experience of choosing a book from the vast selection that surrounds you in a bookstore.

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I don’t really have that much to say about Alan Rapp’s The Photo Book will Rise Again. I feel like I’m not entirely convinced that photo books will ever be either popular or profitable, but Rapp seems to think that independently published photo books seem to be flourishing.

I’ve never owned a Kindle, Nook, or iPad. I do have an iPhone, but I don’t ever use the iBooks application. I’m not sure if photo books are available on these various technological readers, but I wonder if their availability will have an effect on the publishing of physical photo books. I wonder, I wonder….